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[Doral, Florida] This weekend the group Argentine Residents in the Exterior hosted a campaign event in Key Biscayne for Patricia Bullrich, a candidate this year for Argentine President. Manuel Cambo, owner and host of WSQF 94.5 FM Blink Radio in Key Biscayne (Your evacuation route from woke progressive nonsense!) interviewed members of this group and posted the result on www.wsqfradio.com
A national primary election will be held in August, with the general election in October, and a runoff, if needed, in November. Approximately 27 million voters are expected to turn out, representing a participation rate of around 70%.
Argentine Presidents are elected by direct vote, like in Brazil, Mexico and France, not indirectly by an Electoral College as in America, or like a Prime Minister elected by Parliament as in Canada and Great Britain. As a result, candidates concentrate their efforts on the major population centers. Around 44% of all voters reside in the City and Province of Buenos Aires, with another 21% in the interior metropolitan areas of Cordoba, Rosario and Mendoza. See: https://miamiindependent.com/argentine-presidential-election-without-electoral-college/. Argentine voters residing abroad do not represent a large number of votes, but can make substantial financial contributions.
The Presidential candidates tend to line up in national lanes, without regional primaries as in America, defined by various shades of ideology and administrative practices. The three main lanes this year are likely to be as follows:
The Kirchner faction of the Peronista movement might field as its candidate Economy Minister Sergio Massa, but more likely will support Vice President Cristina Kirchner, a former President herself. They are projected to take around 33% of the vote.
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The liberal (in the classical or libertarian sense) lane is contested by Javier Milei, a Presidential candidate four years ago, and Nazareno Etchepare, leader of the Demos political movement. This lane is projected to attract between 9% and up to 19% of the vote. Milei is a volatile and unpredictable candidate, so Etchepare is expected to capture more of these votes as his name recognition increases.
The third major lane was thrown into disarray when former President Mauricio Macri, who lost his bid for re-election four years ago, and was expected to run again this year, declared that he will not do so. Macri’s political movement, Juntos por el Cambio, is expected to attract up to 40% of voters and includes at least two major political figures who are running for President. Their fate will be decided in the primary during August, and the loser is expected to back the winner.
The first candidate from the Juntos por el Cambio political movement is Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires. He is considered an able administrator, but his honesty is questionable, and he lacks charisma, although he might benefit from a potential endorsement from Macri.
The other is Patricia Bullrich, Minister of Security in the Macri administration from 2015 to 2019. She comes from a prominent commercial family, which built Patio Bullrich and other shopping centers. In her youth she participated in the Peronist movement, and also was a Montonero domestic terrorist.
A third candidate affiliated with Macri’s Juntos por el Cambio faction, Miguel Angel Pichetto, currently the national comptroller, recently announced his presidential campaign. He has proposed tax and labor reforms, and seeks a stronger Argentine navy against the Chinese fishing fleet offshore.
The group Argentine Residents in the Exterior has chosen to back Patricia Bullrich, considering that she represents a more modest approach to leadership than what is customary in Latin America. They believe that she can ride an ongoing cultural change toward greater civic responsibility that will result in more responsible government. They also think that the pendulum has swung too far toward populist government, and that voters are ready to support a relative moderate, if given a choice. Their event featured prominently a quote from Milton Friedman: “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.”
Argentine residents of Key Biscayne are refugees from socialist government in their home country, so if they become naturalized U.S. citizens, you wonder why they vote for the same failed socialist policies that caused them to leave their home country? It may be that they lack the political knowledge and discernment to make that connection, but it is past time for them to get educated!
Eduardo Vidal is a lawyer and political activist. His family brought him when he was nine years old from Cuba to the USA, but now the rule of law has been eroded in the USA as well, and we are turning into Cuba and the rest of Latin America.
