Election Blunders In Argentina

The Elections for President in Argentina dated October 28th, 2007 can be described as one of the most incompetent events ever seen in Argentine voting history. The process was supposed to begin at 8 a.m. in places designed as polling stations all over the country. Due to the lack of interest in elections that many residents have clearly demonstrated lately, there weren’t enough volunteers to work at polling stations so, in many locations, the voting process began two hours later while voters waited in line.

To make things even worse, a considerable number of voters couldn’t find ballots to vote for candidates that weren’t related to First Lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Voters asked for ballots to the pertinent voting venue’s manager and in many cases, the answer was to just simply vote for somebody else. Another thing to take into account is that all voting venues were supposed to close at 6 p.m., but due to the opening delay in some locations, a one-hour extension for voting was announced while media channels began announcing, in parallel, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s victory. First Lady Cristina Fernández de Kirchner won the elections for president in Argentina with 44.9 percent of the votes, followed by Elisa Carrió and her Civic Coalition with 23 percent of the votes, while former economy minister Roberto Lavagna reached the third place with 17 percent of the votes. Current Vice-President, Daniel Scioli won an incredible 52 percent of the vote for governor of Buenos Aires, while anti-crime fighter Juan Carlos Blumberg, (his son, Axel Blumberg, was abducted and killed in March of 2004), secured less than one percent of the vote for governor of Buenos Aires.

The President-elect Cristina Fernandez and her husband, current President Néstor Kirchner, along with the Vice-president elect Julio Cobos (Mendoza governor) and Daniel Scioli celebrated the victory at the Olivos Presidential residence. Among the group of winners there was a special visitor: Ségolène Royal, France’s defeated presidential candidate who was visiting Argentina as a guest of President-elect Cristina Fernandez.

Although Cristina Fernandez has been compared to the legendary First Lady of Argentina Eva Duarte de Perón as well as to former First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton, who is also seeking to become the first elected female president of the United States, Mrs. Kirchner stated that she doesn’t want to be compared to anyone since there is nothing better than being yourself. She become Argentina’s first elected female president with the same old speeches the Argentine people have heard for years, the kind of speeches that have always been based on statistics that seem to be from a different country - not Argentina.

There are many unanswered questions related to her policies since no political debates were performed before the elections, especially when the Argentina’s Consumer Defense Association called consumers for a “Tomato Boycott” to make wholesalers react and drop their excessive prices to a more affordable one. And, despite the tomato over-pricing, inflation has been one of the main concerns among the candidates for the elections since the official statistics suggest inflation is under control.

The President-elect victory was not doing well among middle-class voters located in big cities such as Buenos Aires, Rosario and Cordoba. Middle-class voters are worried about the risk of rising inflation which is placed into a fragile economy. Poverty and unemployment have climbed so it is quite impossible to believe inflation is under control, especially now when plans for Argentina are still in the unknown.

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