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ENGLISH VERSION
ChaKo joins Chubut
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VERSIÓN ESPAÑOL
ChaKo se suma a Chubut
El batacazo peronista en el Chaco, además del esperado triunfo del Frente para la Victoria en Chubut, constituyen lo que los Pumas llamarían un “punto bonus” para el gobierno: si la disputada elección cordobesa finalmente recae en Juan Schiaretti, el candidato del oficialismo, hacia fines de la semana, los mediados de septiembre bien pueden marcar un giro decisivo a favor de la candidata presidencial con más posibilidades, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
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The Peronist upset in Chaco on top of the expected Victory Front triumph in Chubut constitutes what the Pumas might call a “bonus point” for the government — if the disputed Córdoba election finally falls to the ruling party’s candidate Juan Schiaretti later this week, mid-September might well end up marking a decisive momentum swing in favour of presidential frontrunner Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Chaco was the big surprise of the last round of voting before the October 28 general elections, ending 12 years of Radical rule, especially since Radical candidate Angel Rozas (previously a two-term governor, as well as a former national party chairman) was considered master of the province even more than outgoing Governor Roy Nikisch. The election winner Jorge Capitanich, who had already lost to Rozas by 30 percent in 1999 and to Nikisch by 10 percent in 2003, was lagging in the opinion polls by 10-20 percent and was bereft of any support from President Néstor Kirchner — partly because the Victory Front has little room for losers and partly because of Capitanich’s past as Cabinet Chief during the presidency of Eduardo Duhalde, Kirchner’s Peronist arch-rival. Yet Kirchner can still claim credit for the result precisely because of his neglect — the isolation imposed on Nikisch for not emulating the subservience of other Radical provincial governments made it impossible to cope with such problems as a provincial debt of 1.3 billion dollars or over half the population below the poverty line, thus prompting a backlash ably capitalized by Capitanich. Mercifully Córdoba’s dispute was not replicated in Chaco even if Capitanich’s majority (0.47 percent of the electorate) was even smaller than Schiaretti’s (0.72 percent) — the Chaco provincial government could hardly be accused of fraud against its own candidate while the national government was absent. There are various other interesting lessons from the Chaco results — a fresh example of the fallibility of opinion polls, an illustration of the lunacy of a national electoral law awarding outright victory to any candidate topping 45 percent of the vote (Rozas with 46.4 percent would also be governor by that yardstick) and a demonstration that the government can gain a favourable result despite (indeed perhaps because of) the lack of Kirchner’s support.
All more exciting than Chubut where incumbent Governor Mario das Neves won a landslide of nearly 72 percent (with the support of the local Provech party) as against a disastrous 14 percent for the Radicals after winning by just 45-41 percent in 2003 following two Radical terms. The verdict in the 15 districts voting until now has been curiously even (including four clear victories for Kirchner and four clear defeats) but the government seems to have the last laugh.
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