Agentines are finally getting fed up with the failed ideas that politicians like Bernie, Warren, Obama, Hillary and company want to force on Americans. Notice the reference to authoritarianism. It is not unique to Central and South America, it is the preferred method of the left to enforce its ideology on an otherwise free people. Do you honestly think the limiting of free speech for conservatives and libertarians on American campuses and news rooms is an organic development of advanced democracies? If you do, I have a lovely bridge in New York City I'd like to sell you.
Argentines Keep Moving to the Right
President Mauricio Macri’s ‘Let’s Change’ coalition is expected to do well in Sunday’s elections.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri and his predecessor, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. PHOTO: JUAN MABROMATA AND EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Oct. 22, 2017 6:46 p.m. ET
15 COMMENTS
Argentina held midterm legislative elections Sunday for half the seats in the lower house and a third in the Senate. Votes were still being counted as we went to press, but early results suggested that the biggest loser is likely to be former President Cristina Kirchner’s Citizen’s Unity coalition. That would make the big winner President Mauricio Macri.
The center-right Mr. Macri and his young Let’s Change coalition, which includes parties from the left, are not expected to pick up a majority in either chamber. And Mrs. Kirchner herself is forecast to win one of three contested Senate seats in Buenos Aires Province. Yet in the August primary—which in Argentina is really a dry run of the election—she won by only a razor-thin margin and the most recent polls gave her a second-place finish behind Let’s Change candidate Esteban Bullrich, whose party was likely to come away with the other two seats.
The Bullrich margin of victory narrowed last week, and a Kirchner upset was not impossible. But nationally her coalition was almost certain to underperform. As La Nación columnist Carlos Pagni wrote on Thursday, if Let’s Change prevails in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe and retains, as expected, Córdoba, Mendoza, Entre Ríos and La Pampa, “Macri will have conquered a power base, unheard of for any ruling party in a parliamentary election since 1983.”
Néstor Kirchner, Cristina’s late husband, was president from 2003-07; her presidency followed from 2007-15. Buenos Aires Province became a stronghold for the ruling Peronist sect known as kirchnerismo. Her struggle in this race and the weak finish for her coalition nationally signals that her political career and her brand of Peronism are withering.
A former chief of cabinet for Mrs. Kirchner, Sergio Massa, and the official Peronist candidate, Florencio Randazzo, were expected to finish a distant third and fourth in the Buenos Aires Province race. Their candidacies, alongside Mrs. Kirchner, illustrate the Peronist crackup. Together they could have beaten Let’s Change. But Mrs. Kirchner has divided the party.
The anti-Kirchner wing is large and growing. It seems to recognize that if it hopes to compete with Let’s Change, it has to offer constructive ideas, which will at times coincide with Mr. Macri’s. This too is good news for Mr. Macri.
In his first two years in office most of his economic reforms have been blocked in Congress. But his party’s strong showing in these elections may give him the momentum he needs to secure some legislative cooperation on tax and labor reforms, and perhaps even a fiscal responsibility law for the provinces.
Mainstream Peronists seem more antipathetic toward Mrs. Kirchner than Mr. Macri. No matter their shade of ideology, they are rumored to share the common view that they have to “get rid of Cristina,” as one keen political observer put it to me by telephone from Buenos Aires last week. “They know they cannot create a new Peronism that can compete in terms of substance if she is still around.”
The party is already signaling that Mrs. Kirchner is a liability. Peronist senator and party-bloc leader Miguel Ángel Pichettowarned Mrs. Kirchner in September that should she win a seat, she would not be invited to caucus with the party. His official reason was that since she had chosen to run on her own ticket, she should form her own bloc. But the unspoken reality is that she is toxic to the future of Peronism.
Kirchnerismo is primitive, hard-left populism. It nationalized private pension accounts, applied confiscatory tax rates on soybean exports, and trampled the rule of law in everything from civil liberties to contract rights. Devaluation, expropriation, deficit spending and a war on private enterprise and the free press brought low the once-proud nation.
As la presidenta dragged the country left, she also became more authoritarian. That worked for Hugo Chávez because Venezuelan oil wealth is concentrated in the hands of the state. But Argentines resented her power grab, accompanied as it was by declining incomes, heavy state intervention and rising crime. They also loathed her hateful speeches aimed at opponents and her efforts to reopen the wounds of the “dirty war” of the 1970s and ’80s.
During kirchnerismo federal judges were cowed. But when Mrs. Kirchner’s candidate lost the 2015 presidential election, things began to change. Now the judiciary is investigating a widening number of alleged Kirchner corruption scandals ranging from elaborate kickback schemes that would have made Eva Perón blush to what appears to be the murder of federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman.
In the aftermath of the 2001-02 economic crisis, the Kirchners rode a wave of isolationist fervor. But it no longer resonates with many voters. Mr. Macri and Let’s Change want Argentina to reclaim its rightful economic and political role in the world. The national success of Let’s Change suggests Argentines agree.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
Appeared in the October 23, 2017, print edition.
Argentines Keep Moving to the Right
President Mauricio Macri’s ‘Let’s Change’ coalition is expected to do well in Sunday’s elections.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri and his predecessor, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. PHOTO: JUAN MABROMATA AND EITAN ABRAMOVICH/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
By
Mary Anastasia O’Grady
Oct. 22, 2017 6:46 p.m. ET
15 COMMENTS
Argentina held midterm legislative elections Sunday for half the seats in the lower house and a third in the Senate. Votes were still being counted as we went to press, but early results suggested that the biggest loser is likely to be former President Cristina Kirchner’s Citizen’s Unity coalition. That would make the big winner President Mauricio Macri.
The center-right Mr. Macri and his young Let’s Change coalition, which includes parties from the left, are not expected to pick up a majority in either chamber. And Mrs. Kirchner herself is forecast to win one of three contested Senate seats in Buenos Aires Province. Yet in the August primary—which in Argentina is really a dry run of the election—she won by only a razor-thin margin and the most recent polls gave her a second-place finish behind Let’s Change candidate Esteban Bullrich, whose party was likely to come away with the other two seats.
The Bullrich margin of victory narrowed last week, and a Kirchner upset was not impossible. But nationally her coalition was almost certain to underperform. As La Nación columnist Carlos Pagni wrote on Thursday, if Let’s Change prevails in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe and retains, as expected, Córdoba, Mendoza, Entre Ríos and La Pampa, “Macri will have conquered a power base, unheard of for any ruling party in a parliamentary election since 1983.”
Néstor Kirchner, Cristina’s late husband, was president from 2003-07; her presidency followed from 2007-15. Buenos Aires Province became a stronghold for the ruling Peronist sect known as kirchnerismo. Her struggle in this race and the weak finish for her coalition nationally signals that her political career and her brand of Peronism are withering.
A former chief of cabinet for Mrs. Kirchner, Sergio Massa, and the official Peronist candidate, Florencio Randazzo, were expected to finish a distant third and fourth in the Buenos Aires Province race. Their candidacies, alongside Mrs. Kirchner, illustrate the Peronist crackup. Together they could have beaten Let’s Change. But Mrs. Kirchner has divided the party.
The anti-Kirchner wing is large and growing. It seems to recognize that if it hopes to compete with Let’s Change, it has to offer constructive ideas, which will at times coincide with Mr. Macri’s. This too is good news for Mr. Macri.
In his first two years in office most of his economic reforms have been blocked in Congress. But his party’s strong showing in these elections may give him the momentum he needs to secure some legislative cooperation on tax and labor reforms, and perhaps even a fiscal responsibility law for the provinces.
Mainstream Peronists seem more antipathetic toward Mrs. Kirchner than Mr. Macri. No matter their shade of ideology, they are rumored to share the common view that they have to “get rid of Cristina,” as one keen political observer put it to me by telephone from Buenos Aires last week. “They know they cannot create a new Peronism that can compete in terms of substance if she is still around.”
The party is already signaling that Mrs. Kirchner is a liability. Peronist senator and party-bloc leader Miguel Ángel Pichettowarned Mrs. Kirchner in September that should she win a seat, she would not be invited to caucus with the party. His official reason was that since she had chosen to run on her own ticket, she should form her own bloc. But the unspoken reality is that she is toxic to the future of Peronism.
Kirchnerismo is primitive, hard-left populism. It nationalized private pension accounts, applied confiscatory tax rates on soybean exports, and trampled the rule of law in everything from civil liberties to contract rights. Devaluation, expropriation, deficit spending and a war on private enterprise and the free press brought low the once-proud nation.
As la presidenta dragged the country left, she also became more authoritarian. That worked for Hugo Chávez because Venezuelan oil wealth is concentrated in the hands of the state. But Argentines resented her power grab, accompanied as it was by declining incomes, heavy state intervention and rising crime. They also loathed her hateful speeches aimed at opponents and her efforts to reopen the wounds of the “dirty war” of the 1970s and ’80s.
During kirchnerismo federal judges were cowed. But when Mrs. Kirchner’s candidate lost the 2015 presidential election, things began to change. Now the judiciary is investigating a widening number of alleged Kirchner corruption scandals ranging from elaborate kickback schemes that would have made Eva Perón blush to what appears to be the murder of federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman.
In the aftermath of the 2001-02 economic crisis, the Kirchners rode a wave of isolationist fervor. But it no longer resonates with many voters. Mr. Macri and Let’s Change want Argentina to reclaim its rightful economic and political role in the world. The national success of Let’s Change suggests Argentines agree.
Write to O’Grady@wsj.com.
Appeared in the October 23, 2017, print edition.
