IPS-English ELECTIONS-ARGENTINA: A Clear Run for Cristina Fernández
 
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:00:50 -0700

 
Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, Sep 26   (IPS)  - Even though many survey respondents
say they will not vote for a woman in the Argentine presidential elections,
Senator Cristina Fernández appears to have a clear run to succeed
her husband, Néstor Kirchner, in the top job, analysts say.

The most conservative poll estimates indicate that Fernández could
win the Oct. 28 elections with 43 percent of the vote, while her closest
rivals stand at less than 15 percent.

And some analysts say Fernández, who like her husband belongs to
the centre-left faction of the Justicialista (Peronist) Party (PJ),
could receive up to 50 percent of the ballot.    

For her part, Elisa Carrió, a centre-left opposition candidate, and
Roberto Lavagna, economy minister in the second half of the previous
administration and part of the present one, are each garnering 15
percent of voter intentions, pollsters Graciela Romer, Rosendo Fraga
and Jorge Giacobbe said at a press conference for foreign correspondents
Tuesday.

A majority of voters appreciate the economic recovery and stability
achieved since Kirchner took office in May 2003, but these and other
accomplishments may only partly explain the victory forecast for Fernández.

Even if she garners little more than 40 percent of the vote, she
is likely to win by a ”landslide,” Fraga said.

Under the Argentine electoral system, a candidate can be elected
president in the first round if he or she gains at least 45 percent
of the vote, or 40 percent if he or she has a lead of at least 10
percentage points over the runner-up.

Giacobbe regarded a runoff election between the two top candidates
as unlikely. But should it be necessary, a triumph for the senator
is still a sure thing, he said.

”Opposition feeling has grown in the last few months, but the opposition
has been unable to capitalise on it,” Fraga said. ”Never before in
the history of Argentina has the opposition been as fragmented as
it is now. For the first time since 1916, the centrist Radical Civic
Union (UCR) is not even fielding a presidential candidate.”

Historically, the UCR has been one of the country's most important
parties. It won the 1916 elections in which universal suffrage (for
men) and secret ballots were first used, and in 1983 its candidate
Raúl Alfonsín was elected after seven years of bloody dictatorship.

But the UCR suffered from the late-2001 economic collapse, which
forced then president Fernando de la Rúa, a member of that party and
the head of a coalition government, to step down.

In the coming elections, one sector of the UCR is supporting Lavagna,
while many of its political leaders are backing Fernández. The lack
of a UCR candidate illustrates the weakness of traditional political
parties and the absence of an effective opposition, as mentioned by
Fraga.

Approval ratings for the president and his leadership of the country
have slumped over the past six months, mainly because of accusations
of corruption and price hikes. The government is accused of tampering
with the consumer price index to make inflation appear lower than
it is, points which the opposition will try to exploit.

Kirchner, who declined to stand for reelection, had a 60 percent
approval rating in March, which has dropped to 37 percent now, said
Giacobbe. ”There's a continuing downward slide, and there are many
problems pending,” he said.

According to the analysts, Kirchner or his successor will have to
make adjustments to the economy, particularly to public service rates
which have been frozen since 2001, and get public spending back into
the black.

Fraga predicted that if Fernández wins, it will be a big challenge
to make her presidency look like a first term, without carrying over
the worn-out image of Kirchner's administration.

If elected, Fernández will be the first woman president of Argentina
to come to power by the ballot box. María Estela Martínez (1974-1976),
better known as Isabel, is the only woman president the country has
had so far. 

The wife of former President Juan Domingo Perón (1946-1955, 1973-1974),
she was his vice president and became president after his death.

But part of the electorate is still unwilling to elect a woman to
the top political job in the country. According to Giacobbe, 30 percent
of eligible voters reject Fernández solely because she is a woman.

Those who hold this view are mainly people over 50, and two-thirds
of them are men. ”They are strongly influenced by the negative image”
of the unpopular Isabel Perón, he said.   

In 1973, Isabel was her husband's running mate when he was elected
president for the third time. He died in 1974, and his widow stepped
into his shoes until 1976, when amid a political, economic and social
crisis she was deposed by the coup d'état which ushered in the 1976-1983
military dictatorship.

But those times are past, said the analysts. ”There is no fanaticism”
today, where the loyalties of voters to the two traditional parties
(PJ and UCR) are in crisis, said Giacobbe. ”Sixty percent of the electorate
describes itself as independent,” he pointed out.

Not all voters who favour the governing party's candidate are starry-eyed
about the administration, he said. ”Four percent of respondents say
Kirchner is doing an excellent job and four percent say he's a disaster.
The rest see different mixtures of good and bad government decisions,”
Giacobbe said.

Fraga does not see voting intentions as quite so rational. The middle
class, which has benefited the most from the consumer recovery that
has taken place under Kirchner, is less likely to vote for the first
lady than lower-income sectors, who are the most vulnerable and have
not benefited as much from the economic growth.

”Three-quarters of the people who voted for Kirchner were the same
as those who voted for Menem before him,” Fraga said. Former President
Carlos Menem (1989-1999) of the PJ was the focus of criticism by the
Kirchner administration because of the legacy of the free-market reforms
introduced during his two terms of office.

”The electoral base was virtually the same. The difference was that
one out of four of Menem's voters came from the centre-right, and
one out of four of Kirchner's voters were from the centre-left,” Fraga
said.


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+ LATIN AMERICA: A Few Women in Power, Millions Still Powerless (http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=36829)


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