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Soriek  1yr ago (text post)   1073 thread views

Transnational Thursdays 23

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum might be interested in. I’m increasingly doing more coverage of countries we’re likely to have a userbase living in, or just that I think our userbase would be more interested in. This does mean going a little outside of my comfort zone and I’ll probably make mistakes, so chime in where you see any. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Argentina

Argentina held their first round of elections this Sunday with peronist candidate Sergio Massa pulling first place at 36.6%, trailed by now-notorious libertarian Javier Milei at 29.9%. Milei’s share was about the same as he got in the primary, but Massa’s gains were a slight surprise as the center right party JxC was polling a little better and had recently performed well in local elections. Also, like, because inflation is at 140% and Massa is literally the Economy Minister presiding over this.

Not many politicians would stand a chance in an election after overseeing an inflation rate of almost 140%. Yet Massa, who doubles up as economy minister, has used all the tricks in the book to give support to voters who are fearful of losing a cradle of subsidies and social-welfare handouts regardless of Argentina’s unsustainable finances.

Days before the vote, Massa’s campaign posted signs in subway stations and train stops showing the difference in fare prices Argentines would pay under him versus Milei: the present 59 pesos, or 6 cents, compared to 700 pesos without the subsidies the current Peronist administration gives.

These kind of stunts paid off. Massa gained 3 million votes on Sunday compared to his coalition’s third-place finish in the August primary. Meanwhile, frontrunner Milei lost votes.

Massa carved a clear path to the presidency by tapping into the entrenched Peronist network of governors, labor unions and social movements.

“Massa’s results demonstrate that the Peronist political machinery is alive and well and can effectively mobilize voters in key traditional bastions in the north of the country and, crucially, the province of Buenos Aires — even amid apathy,” said Jimena Blanco, head of the Americas research at consulting firm Verisk Maplecroft.

There will be a follow up election on November 19th. It’s hard to predict exactly how things will go. JxC normally has a more free market voter base who you would think might lean more towards, Milei, but he absolutely tore into their candidate Bullrich during the campaign so may have squandered quite a bit of good will. He’s now said he wants to go blank slate and work hand in hand with JxC, which seems to be highly fractured at the moment and maybe will siphon voters to the right (former President Macri, technically still the leader of JxC, seems like he will go for Milei). He’s even supposedly making appeals to ¡los zurdos de mierda! left wing voters so he must be kinda desperate.

I’m not really sure which outcome is weirder, the west’s most chronically populist country empowering a meme libertarian, or re-electing a party that’s demonstrated itself incapable of addressing voters’ most important issue.

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