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ENGLISH VERSION
Is a fair vote free?
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| HERALD STAFF |
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VERSIÓN ESPAÑOL
Elecciones transparentes ¿libres?
Tanto las diversas protestas realizadas contra el posible fraude electoral en las elecciones del 26 de octubre como las precauciones tomadas en respuesta por parte de la Cámara Electoral Nacional parecen confundirse de muchas maneras. Estos miedos se convirtieron por primera vez en un tema de discusión luego de las reñidísimas elecciones en Córdoba y Chaco el mes pasado (con este último caso resuelto recién esta semana a favor del peronista Jorge Capitanich), pero ninguna de las encuestas de opinión para las elecciones nacionales parece sugerir que el oficialismo necesite hacer trampa de formas tan directas.
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The various protests being raised against possible electoral fraud in the October 28 elections and the precautions being taken to accommodate them by the National Electoral Court both seem to miss the point in many ways. These fears first became an issue following last month’s cliffhangers in Córdoba and Chaco (with the latter resolved only this week in favour of Peronist Jorge Capitanich) but none of the opinion polls for national voting would seem to suggest that the ruling party is in any need of such direct cheating. Two of the three main precautions take the form of allowing party supervisors to check the data-loading for the electronic vote-counting as well as the despatch of the ballots to the polling-booths to ensure that all parties are represented. But both these precautions leave begging the question of how the multiple parties of a fragmented opposition find the scrutineers to cover nearly 100,000 polling-precincts once all the ballots have arrived and the electoral software is verified — if opinion pollsters frequently complain about the impossibility of covering various no-go areas of Greater Buenos Aires for their surveys, what chances would opposition scrutineers have even in the cases of those parties who could find 100,000 people for the job?
The third court initiative to ensure a fair election is to press the Interior Ministry to speed up the transfer of the statutory campaign funds to the various parties but the very need for such an appeal highlights a problem which rules out any level playing-field even with the cleanest voting-machinery in place — namely, the discretionary application of national funds on behalf of the government’s own interests. How else explain the fact that all surviving governors from the main Radical opposition party are firmly aligned behind President Néstor Kirchner with Mendoza Governor Julio Cobos as presidential candidate Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s running-mate?
In a word, taking every possible precaution over how people vote does not cover why people vote — there is a political culture of patronage and paternalism which denies a genuinely free vote, no matter how fair the voting may be. In the final analysis, this burst of judicial activism may not even be the best way to resolve problems which are far more political and cultural — recourse to judicial appeal might save the country from a fraudulent election but does nothing towards creating a mature political system.
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