2023-11-15 03:30:00
José Luis Mozzoni*
Much has been attempted in recent months to analyze the different cleavages that the electoral campaign in Argentina has been adopting: the disruptive emergence of Milei, the desperate attempt of politics and consultancy to try to pigeonhole and interpret him and the system itself – questioned – trying to understand a citizenry that showed fed up and anger of years of disagreements. But as in a disease, the first thing you notice are the symptoms and a week following the ballot, it is interesting to delve beyond the feverish diagnosis of the system itself.
Proposing a game of mental images, we start from the figure of an iceberg trying to interpret -in principle- what is seen above the sea. The image of ice sticking out of the water and warning: Attention, there is a problem here. Or several.
But, What is underneath all those media, virtual discussions, in the communication spaces of social networks, where it “seems” that real issues are being discussed? What is the basis of all those discussions – at the moment trivialized to the extreme – that only seem to remain in the spectacularization of politics and that further denigrate the system itself and further enervate society?
The bottom of the iceberg might be hiding what might really be at stake in this election.
First things first: a third of societies intertwined with the system in Latin America
José “Pepe” Mujica and Julio María Sanguinetti, in the framework of different meetings that preceded the book “Horizons-Conversations without noise…”, say regarding democracies in Latin America and the discontent that has been expressed at the polls in different countries. Mujica refers to “that the revolution today is technological” and that in it “the problem is that new types of demand appear and the fantastic progress of material goods is creating a kind of permanent ritual nonconformism.” “I see the results from some sides. There are thirty, forty percent of people who are voting once morest those who exist and have no idea what they are voting for,” adds Mujica.
In power (or because of it)
The dramatic journey of Sergio Massa to be a candidate and which today positions him as the candidate of the system itself for November 19, and the survival of the current Minister of Economy of the Nation, cannot be attributed merely to a “miracle.” “He is the preferred candidate of the red circle,” some analyzes say. It might have been Larreta too, but it is Massa. That’s how it happened.
Returning to the analogy of the images, if it were a pyramid, from the handling that the Unión por la Patria candidate had in his relationship with Cristina Kirchner and from that relationship downwards; He built leadership beyond the result he obtained on Sunday. The governors, the unions, the red circle itself, the IMF, the businessmen that he himself – smilingly in interviews – recognizes as friends.
Massa is not just a candidate: Behind that installed brand there is an entire system that is bidding today and that recognizes in that option, the stability of the country and the formal and “informal” institutions. Their conditioning: social fatigue, which will not calm their anxieties until, with gestures, actions and public policies, the system does not show signs of change.
From the side of Javier Milei, the thing is more complex. The relationship with Victoria Villarruel as his partner. Villarruel was already known for her position regarding the coup of ’76. There are those who maintain that the creation of La Libertad Avanza, or at least the idea of creating a party that defends libertarian ideals and positions itself in a right-wing (or extreme right) sector, predates Milei. They argue that Villarruel is a reference for an important group of soldiers and former members of the Armed Forces, who decided to seek a space within the framework of democracy. On that path, Milei served them and they served Milei.
Pero Milei is not just that, it would be to underestimate it and the space that strongly penetrated our society and that captured in the first instance that 30% of citizens who were expressing an anti-system sense in Latin America, as Mujica says. What is before and what is following, we don’t know, it’s like the chicken and the egg. Although it is important to highlight that there are democratic values that are being discussed and that are worth paying attention to, beyond the rating. Society also notices it.
Having said that, Milei’s relationship with Mauricio Macri seems to be more of an anecdote. A purely electoral relationship, with strong indications of not being as stable as it seemed just a few hours later. of the result of the October elections. La Libertad Avanza has already shown its antibodies and removed weight from what they called from day one merely “unconditional support for Javier’s candidacy.”
Stated this way, it seems that the crack, Kirchnerism, Macri, Together for Change and Milei even, are only a visible part of a game of power relations that go far beyond simple ideological issues and candidate egos.
Meanwhile and in the final stretch of the campaign, lUnfortunately (or not), from both bunkers they point out to a greater extent not at the candidate himself, but at the “partnerships” or “agreements” that these candidates have had. What to do to get to where they got.
In particular, Milei appears more vulnerable to being questioned and surfs on narratives. Massa seems to have consolidated his own narrative, with a strong imprint and prominence of Political Communication, that even allows it to show itself today as a change, within “the same”.
* Consultant (Dos Zetas Consultora)/Postgraduate in Literature and Political Speech (Flacso)/Diploma in Political Communication (UBA)/Political Management and Communication (UndAv)/
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#Elections #game #relationships