2023-10-25 17:38:04
For 13 hours, radicalism debated whether to associate with the PRO. At that meeting on March 15, 2015, in Gualeguaychú, Senator Ernesto Sanz pressed and pressed to seal the alliance, until he finally achieved approval (186 votes in favor once morest 130 once morest).
It was the birth of Cambiemos, the most important opposition political force in recent years that, months later, would reach the national government at the hands of Mauricio Macri.
Gualeguaychú’s decision allowed the UCR to leave behind the ostracism of a long period away from any aspiration for real power. Although he had some bastion of power – like the capital Córdoba, for example, under the control of Ramón Mestre – the idea of returning to La Rosada was very far from being realized.
The numbers say it. 20 years ago, when the Alliance ceased to exist, three candidates related to that experiment ran in the presidential election. Ricardo López Murphy (who got 16.3% of the votes); “Lilita” Carrió (14.11%) and Leopoldo Moreau (2%).
It was the election that Néstor Kirchner lost, but won. The beginning of a different story.
Without an electoral pact between opponents, things remained the same. It is enough to remember the 2011 elections. That time, Ricardo Alfonsín received 11.14% of the votes as a presidential candidate. He was 43 percentage points behind Cristina Kirchner, who was re-elected by adding 11,865,000 votes.
It was the beginning of Cristina’s “let’s go for everything”, since Kirchnerism found itself alone, with no opposition in sight and with the ability to advance on any issue (the Peronist Sergio Massa had to appear, in 2011, to put a stop to it. Buenos Aires province).
Until the unit option with the PRO arrived. Not without internal resistance, which remains alive to this day. For example, Julio Cobos from Mendoza, supported by then senator Gerardo Morales, defended an agreement with the Renovador Front.
Real alternative
After 8 and a half years of transcendent victories, of building a real alternative to Peronism and having survived the failure of the first government, the time seems to have come to self-destruct.
Like Cambiemos, the alliance managed to defeat Kirchnerism in 2015, in an unprecedented event that opened up a center-right option in the political spectrum with a vocation for power and leadership muscle.
The first example of coexistence was the primary, with three candidates: Macri-Michetti, Sanz-Llach and Carrió-Flores. The winner would keep the candidacy for president and the others would accompany.
That’s how it went. Macri won with 24.49% of the votes in the internal elections and got the ticket for the general elections, where he would face, and lose, once morest Daniel Scioli, although with a runoff to be decided. Finally, Cambiemos achieved the miracle of defeating the ruling party in a very close second round (51.34% once morest 48.66%) and advanced towards La Rosada.
Perhaps that dynamic, without the UCR in expected positions, was a strategic error by the PRO, which believed it might do without the radicals for management. Anyway, in 2017 that was not noticed: Cambiemos won the mid-term elections, won 13 provinces and advanced as a major political alliance.
We Argentines know it: starting in 2018, the economy went down the drain and, with it, Cambiemos. Macri turned to the IMF, and Cristina, to Alberto. Thus, Kirchnerism, which seemed finished, revived and won the 2019 elections.
But there, as Together for Change, the best of the electoral alliance was demonstrated. He knew how to maintain unity in the desert of power, following a crushing presidential defeat (first 49.50% to 32.93% in the primaries, and then 48.24% to 40.28% in the general elections) and reached 2023 in equilibrium.
It’s more. At the beginning of this year many believed that, given the debacle by Alberto Fernández, Together for Change had won the presidential election. But Javier Milei appeared, exploding the opposition vote in two and leaving Patricia Bullrich in third place.
The decision of Macri and Bullrich to support Milei in the runoff will detonate the alliance, since the UCR is not willing to follow that path. The dissolution of the alliance is bad news for the Argentine democratic system.
It will leave Peronism without a significant rival in the short term (the rearrangements will take time) and will open up an unexpected – and desired – scenario if Massa wins in the second round.
A country without a strong opposition is a temptation for authorism and excesses. You don’t have to go back too far in time. It is enough to go back a few lines to remember that “let’s go for everything” meant the beginning of a rift that has divided the country, stagnated it economically and closed any possibility of improvement.
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#breakup #Change #20year #institutional #setback
