The debate on insecurity has crept into the Argentine primary elections, already rarefied by the climate of social confrontation resulting from high inequality and an economy that is not sustaining itself.
The murder, on Wednesday, of Morena Domínguez, an 11-year-old girl from the town of Lanús, in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, has placed the issue of security at the center of the consultations that are being carried out today. The girl was attacked when she was going to school by a couple of criminals who gave her a hard blow to her side to steal her backpack. They then fled on a motorcycle. The girl herself passed away hours later at the hospital to which she was transported.
The death aroused the indignation of the residents of an area already hard hit by crime and lack of work. But they were not the only outraged. A day later, the former FARC guerrilla and Argentine photojournalist Facundo Molares died of a pulmonary hemorrhage in the Plaza del Obelisco, in downtown Buenos Aires, where he had gone to demonstrate with social movements. In the videos of the demonstration, you can see the police holding Molares with his face to the ground while the protesters yell at them that he “turns purple”.
Argentina is today a country with a poverty that reaches 40% of the population, an inflation that rises to 116%, where there is a lack of dollars in the face of a currency that continues to lose value. It is not a new disease for the country. Neither are the eternal negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to which the country is an eternal debtor. The government of Alberto Fernández tries to get around the situation by controlling capital movements, which makes exports difficult.
Today the Argentines go to the primary elections, open and simultaneous in all the parties, in which the organizations decide their final candidates for the presidential elections that must be held on October 22. It is a unique procedure of Argentine democracy that allows us to glimpse what will be the forces that will face each other in the next elections.
However, given the background of the last electoral appointments, it is possible that abstention is high, given the growing discredit of politics.
One of the focuses of attention is placed on the Together for Change coalition, where Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, current president of the Buenos Aires government and a man from the center right, is fighting for the candidacy. Larreta is known for having supported Mauricio Macri's government at the time, of which he was campaign manager in the elections that led him to the presidency. Macri governed the country between 2015 and 2019, but he could not prevent the return of Peronism to the government.
The moderate Larreta starts as a favorite against his opponent, the controversial Patricia Bullrich, a Montonera guerrilla in her youth (left-wing Peronism), exiled during the years of repression and, on her return to Argentina, converted into a supporter of the hardest right. Minister of Security and Defense during Macri's term, Bullrich's main asset is her determination to use a strong hand as a formula to tackle the complex social situation in which Argentine society finds itself. A Bullrich victory would promise a fiery and polarized contest with the ruling Peronism.
In the center left In the Peronist Unión por la Patria, today in government, they face the current Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, who starts with the difficult role of having to defend an economy with impossible numbers and the discredit of the still president , a lackluster Alberto Fernández.
Massa has assumed the candidacy after the decision not to repeat Alberto Fernández, the man that Kirchnerism had chosen to continue its policy. Nor has Cristina Fernández, the widow of Kirchner who ruled the country between 2007 and 2015, wanted to try her luck again. Massa competes for the candidacy with Juan Grabois, a forty-year-old man who comes from the social movements. Grabois began as a leader of the "cartoneros" and street vendors. He later joined Peronism at the hands of Cristina Fernández. The chances of him are slim.
Finally, the most controversial candidate is Javier Milei, an economist who analysts place on the extreme right. He denies it and declares himself a libertarian. However, he is a man against abortion and a supporter of a strong hand in the prosecution of crime. He defends the dollarization of the Argentine economy to put an end to high inflation. With a 20% voting intention, Milei rose to fame from television, where he stands out for his foul language.
