It would be irresponsible not to open an analysis of Sunday’s primary elections without a disclaimer. In the commotion to interpret the results, it can be easy to forget that the only concrete outcome of the vote is the elimination of those who either lost the bid to be the candidate of their party/alliance or those who failed to pass the minimum 1.5% threshold.
So, to be clear, no-one really ‘won’ the election yesterday. The headline is that six candidates qualified to run for president on 25th October, and many others did the same for governor, legislator, and mayoral positions across the country.
The six candidates that will run for president on 25th October.
However, aside from determining the starting line up for the main event, the PASO can also be viewed – with caution – as a comprehensive and transparent survey of voter intentions.
With this in mind, and accepting the dangers of extrapolating too much from a primary vote, here are some of the key themes as we look to October (a lifetime away in Argentina politics).
1) Scioli is in the Driving Seat
With all the votes now counted, Frente para la Victoria (FpV) candidate Daniel Scioli is the clear leader with 38.4%. It’s not quite the 40% that would have been considered a resounding triumph, but he has opened up a comfortable 14-point lead over main rival Mauricio Macri and 24 points over Sergio Massa (they were both competing in internal primaries). He will also be encouraged by the breadth of support, coming first in all but three provinces – Córdoba, Mendoza, San Luis – outside of the City of Buenos Aires.
Scioli’s target for October is the 45% that would guarantee an outright victory in the first round of voting. Perhaps a more realistic goal is to cross the threshold of 40% and hope to preserve a ten-point margin over his nearest rival.
At one point in the ungodly hours of Monday morning, the Cambiemos alliance – dominated by Macri – was trailing Scioli by just four points. Such a result would have handed the PRO leader all the momentum and thrown the presidential race wide open. But the gap widened as votes trickled in from around the country, and in the end Macri will be grateful that the combined Cambiemos support just remained above the symbolic 30% barrier.
This leaves Macri with a good deal of ground to make up, but he only has to remain within ten points of Scioli (provided he receives 40-45%) to take the contest to a second round run-off in November.
2) Massa is Back, and can be King Maker
From being the rising superstar in 2013 to almost abandoning the presidential race a few months ago, Frente Renovador leader Sergio Massa had reason to celebrate his 14.2% result last night (20.6% if you take the complete UNA ticket shared with José Manuel De La Sota). It’s hard to see Massa picking up too many votes outside of UNA and challenging the top two, but his success in retaining his core support and hoovering up De La Sota voters in October could be critical for the final vote.
One way or another, Sergio Massa will play a decisive role in the election. (photo: José Romero/Télam/cf)
Massa could arguably be even more influential in negotiations behind closed doors before it’s time to vote again. Both Scioli and Macri have allegedly made gestures towards the man from Tigre, knowing that his endorsement could be decisive in a second round. We may never fully know what deals are discussed in the coming weeks, but they could mark some interesting first steps for post-Kirchnerist politics.
3) Córdoba Could be the Decisive Battleground
To give himself the best chance of securing a head-to-head with Scioli, Macri needs to find the votes for an 8-10 point jump from the 24.2% he received yesterday. Naturally, he will hope to harvest the near 6% of votes received his Cambiemos partners Ernesto Sanz and Elisa Carrió. They have both pledged to support Macri, and though there is no guarantee that all of their supporters will toe the line, a mass rebellion seems unlikely.
Assuming that very few voters of the eliminated leftist candidates will turn to PRO in October, one of Macri’s main targets now will the 1.4m people (6.4%) who voted for De La Sota and who must now choose whether to stick with the UNA ticket (Massa) or go elsewhere. Around half of De La Sota’s votes came from his home province of Córdoba, a traditional weak spot for the FpV and where Cambiemos came second yesterday with 35.4%. If Macri can convince a portion of De La Sota supporters to vote for him over Massa, he should be well place to ensure a second-round run-off. Of course, Scioli will also be putting a lot of energy into pinching a few for himself.
This all makes Córdoba a key ‘swing’ province, and Peronist-but-anti-Kirchnerist De La Sota’s phone will be ringing a lot in the coming weeks.
4) Cambiemos Ruffled Some Feathers in Buenos Aires Province
There was much talk about the battle within the FPV to become the official party candidate for the governor of Buenos Aires province, arguably the second-most powerful political post in the country. In the end, Aníbal Fernández won a closely-fought contest against rival Julián Domínguez (a close ally of Scioli).
Yet perhaps the bigger surprise was the performance of PRO’s María Eugenia Vidal, who emerged as the single most-voted candidate (with 29.4%) in a traditional Peronist stronghold. With the verticalist FPV likely to get behind Fernández in October, Vidal will need to pull off an even bigger shock to stay in front. But we can expect an intense scrap for votes in the race to be governor, with potential repercussions on the presidential campaign.
Cambiemos (María Eugenia Vidal) performed well in the province of Buenos Aires, but the two FpV candidates captured most votes (Photo via resultados.gob.ar)
More generally, the PASO showed that Cambiemos (essentially PRO) has a solid platform in the province, a significant achievement for a party that desperately needed to extend its voter base beyond the urban middle classes and develop a national structure. Meanwhile, PRO’s gains in the non-Peronist electorate leaves the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR), Argentina’s oldest party, in danger of fading away altogether.
5) Fresh Faced Leftists Can Aim High
Another surprise came from the victory of 35-year-old Nicolás del Caño in becoming candidate for the leftist alliance Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores (FIT). Del Caño beat Jorge Altamira, veteran leader of the Partido Obrero (PO) and six-time presidential candidate, with a campaign pledging to ‘renovate’ the political left. The combined vote of the two candidates reached 3.3% – an improvement from 2.5% in 2011 – and as the only outright leftist party remaining in October, Del Caño will hope to secure FIT’s best ever presidential result.
6) New President Unlikely To Have a Passive Congress
Whatever happens, the next executive is almost certainly not going to enjoy the same level of support in Congress as President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had in her second term.
The legislative elections in October will renew a third of the Senate and half the Lower House in Congress. Scioli is the only candidate with a chance of a majority, but with most of the seats up for renewal belonging to the FPV (a legacy of the 2011 landslide) it is the party with the most to lose, especially given the expansion of Cambiemos and Frente Renovador.
The Lower House of Congress after the 2013 mid-terms (photo courtesy of resultados.gob.ar)
If the PASO results are repeated – a big if – then the FPV will lose its majority in the lower house, but consolidate its majority in the Senate. A potentially complicated scenario for whoever is in the Casa Rosada on 11th December.
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