|
|
Home
> Editorial
> Closely watched votes
|
ENGLISH VERSION
Closely watched votes
|
| |
 |
| HERALD STAFF |
|
|
VERSIÓN ESPAÑOL
... a las cosas
Una de las más recientes — y más refrescantes — noticias del 2004 fue el encuentro, el miércoles pasado, entre la CGT y la Unión Industrial Argentina (UIA) para defender las convenciones colectivas libres contra la andanada de decretos salariales de la segunda mitad del año. Las convenciones colectivas distan de ser perfectas — especialmente con las estructuras sindicales centralizadas, constantemente alentadas por un peronismo que persigue criterios de fuerza política en vez de eficiencia socioeconómica — mas su enfoque, sector por sector, por lo menos rompe con los decretos tan generales que de ninguna manera logran discriminar entre las empresas que ganan y pierden con los enormes cambios en la riqueza que acompañaron la crisis de la deva- luación de 2001-2002. Por lo menos, si sindicalistas y empleadores pueden aprender a mantener las negociaciones salariales entre ellos, habría más posibilidades de que el salario sea determinado por criterios económicos racionales, tales como productividad e inflación, más que por las necesidades políticas y electorales de un gobierno. La CGT y la UIA podrían extender útilmente dicha convergencia social a otras áreas con el fin de reunir consenso allí donde más se lo necesita.
Lea más
|
|
|
Last weekend’s close vote in Chaco following Córdoba’s disputed election (still unresolved after three weeks) has led to an almost unanimous opposition call for international observers which is being respected by the electoral courts yet this remains at best a superficial remedy. Firstly, it seems an abuse of the office of international observers who are more used to being summoned to countries torn by strife or only recently emerging from a harsh dictatorship — has almost a quarter-century of uninterrupted voting resulted in so little democratic maturity that elections are still not routine? Close elections are hardly a novelty in this 21st century world (especially since in so many countries the parties have become so ideologically similar that their results tend to be identical as well) and thus hardly grounds for international intervention. Indeed Chaco Radical runner-up Angel Rozas took so long to protest his defeat that he gives the impression of being forced into being a bad loser by the media and political context while even Córdoba’s Luis Juez has no specific evidence for his far more vehement fraud charges beyond an incredibly slow count (which is admittedly enough to taint the Córdoba result in the public eye). The opposition might cry foul but also has itself to blame if it is unable to capitalize on a ruling party presidential candidate well below 50 percent of the vote despite unprecedented economic success.
Yet the call for observers is also superficial because it does not address the far deeper irregularities underlying next month’s elections, which basically stem from the unfair contest with a government which buys up and co-opts most of the opposition via the discriminatory application of federal funds. A prime example of this syndrome is Mendoza Radical Governor Julio Cobos, ruling party candidate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s running-mate who has just been expelled “for life” by his party’s national committee (perhaps a reaction to the shock of the Radical defeat in their Chaco stronghold after 12 years in power). Cobos can hardly deny being in breach of party discipline and his presence on the Kirchner ticket makes nonsense of any two-party system but he evidently decided a long time that he had little choice but to toe the Kirchner line if he wanted to ensure a smooth transfer of federal funds into Mendoza (something denied Chaco).
Both the government and the opposition can thus be criticized for this appeal for international observers, which should be seen as a national embarrassment rather than an electoral gambit, but an even more important component should step forward to take its blame for this disgrace: the electorate around which democracy should evolve.
|
Go to top
|
Back to editorial
|
|
|
