Sunday Headline News in Argentina: Election Day (October 28th, 2007)

The day finally arrived, and the much anticipated (by approximately 9 political pollsters and by our own Observador de Medios media verdict @ http://observador-de-medios.blogspot.com ) victory of the First Lady has come true: we are minutes away from the announcement that Argentina has its first woman president, without second round.

The latest data says she obtained approximately 45% of votes, a 20pt gap against her closer adversary, multi-faceted Lilita Carrió or ex-Economy Minister Roberto Lavagna, well above Rodriguez Sáa, Sobisch and Lopez Murphy. The leading Frente Para la Victoria party apparently has also won the governor election for the Province of Buenos Aires (the largest in the country, with 10 million voters) with an outstanding victory from vice-president Daniel Scioli.

The papers today already clearly stated that the best hope for the opposition was to reach a second round: while La Nación drily said that today Kirchner's successor would be chosen, and Clarín openly stated that at best, the opposition could hope for a ballotage, apparently discounting the leading party's victory.

The other news are mainyl sports - as is typical in weekends: La Nación chose the local rugby tournament and Clarín chose Carlitos Tevez's excellent performance in the Manchester United victory yesterday in the Premier League.

The truth of the matter is that the opposition has let this opportunity slip through their fingers: their unwillingness to unite - maybe to avoid the 1999 to 2001 Alianza scandal, too fresh in people's minds - and to bridge the gap between their differing ideas strengthened Cristina Kirchner. Besides the good economic momentum - much like 2003 but with weaker growth perspectives and many more problems in the horizon - the Kirchner couple was consistent and worked around their weaknesses, while managing to avoid getting too burnt with the corruption scandals (Skanska, Antonini Wilson, Indec, etc.).

Argentina hails its new president. The oppostion has 4 more years to get their act together if we are ever to reach a system of "alternating" parties, like other developed countries. Until then, we will resemble more a monarchy than a republic; autocratic rather than democratic. Let's hope we are wrong, and let's hope our newly-elected president will begin solving the real issues for the people - now that, for the first time ever, she can't blame her predecessor.

Elections 2007: No Surprises Needed or Wanted

Elections are upon us once again. Last time around, we saw the unexpected happen: Carlos Menem, president for 2 terms, ran for office, won in the first round, and as polls called him a loser on the ballotage, for the first time in history, the front runner pulled out of the race. Néstor Kirchner became president with 22% of votes ...

This time around, it appears there is little room for the unexpected. Little room, I say, because Kirchner will most probably be handing over the reigns of the kingdom to his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. She is a senator but has lived the life of a president - or more - during her campaign, travelling all over the world, shying away from the real topics of interest and spreading much needed warmth towards the international community and investors. She has shown much disregard for the internal problems and has minimized critical issues (official statistics mishandling, recurring energu crises, lack of FDI, etc.)

Will it be enough for her to wind? No one cares. She and her husband have done far more than the opposing parties, who faced somewhat of a paradox. Alone, no one candidate can dispute a strong second position and pray for a second round; and together, they all ran the risk of repeating - at least in the voters' minds - past-alliances' mistakes and dilapitading all of their political capital in one swift move. So, the only chance to aim for a ballotage was doomed because the same rationale was applied in 1999 for De La Rúa and the Alianza, and it ended in the
2001/2002 implosion. And running alone assured failure.

Is there room for a grand gesture on behalf of a candidate to try to re-build bridges and consolidate a 30% + vote percentage to force a second round? It seems not. The enormous ethical/moral grandstand that some candidates have adopted definitely leaves little space for bridge-building. In fact, some candidates are so keen on getting their way that they do not realize they might jeopardize the greater good in so doing.

What now? The answer comes from the same place it has for he past 21 years for out soccer fanaticismo: we get to wait four more years - and pray we can save ourselves so we don't need a Maradona doing our dirty work and generating a false sense of supremacy.

Reappearing ... with Blog Action Day!

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It's about time someone in Argentina seriously started considering the environment. This DOES NOT MEAN just saying no to the paper-mills in Uruguay or boycotting Botnia. This means caring about the environment as a cause, and not as a way to be seen as powerful among neighboring countries. How much attention has been given locally to environmental issues? Very little. A couple of front page articles about a "disappearing lake" in Argentina/Chile, and lots of news about the bad weather in the City and its consequences for the people ... but barely anything generating awareness about the real thing.

What can we do?

For starters, if we really do care about the environment, we should let an environmental agency propose a solution to the paper-mill conflict with Uruguay. If the problem does not have to do with the environment, then it is political, and if it is political, people should know.

Then, we can maybe start adopting laws (although these are more rare than Presidential decrees in Argentina) favoring companies who do care and take assertive action about the environment. Another variation of this would be actually carrying out current laws - for example those limiting pollution by buses, which is absolutely unbelievable to anyone walking around Buenos Aires' avenues.

On a third instance, we could offer entrepreneurs more favorable conditions (i.e., -4%) for green entrepreneurs, i.e., those who start a company complying with regulations.

That could be a good start. Let's join in. This is Blog Action Day.