The Peronism of the province of Buenos Aires acknowledged receipt of the surprise result of the Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory Primaries (PASO) and is debating within itself what is the best campaign strategy to put Sergio Massa in the ballotage, achieve the re-election of Axel Kicillof and retain the municipalities on October 22. Although there are some certainties, what abounds are the doubts and dilemmas that he will have to face on the way to the general election in the province of 37 percent of the national electoral roll with interests that in many cases clash with each other. What to do with Javier Miley? Its convenient that Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner join the campaign? Where does the speech have to go?
Within hours of knowing the result of the primaries, the Buenos Aires Peronist leadership agreed on something: despite the fact that Milei proved to be a “real danger” at the national level, in Buenos Aires his growth saved the Unión por la Patria (UP) from a possible resounding defeat. They analyze that the libertarian got more votes from Together for Change than from Peronism. It was what made the opposition coalition finish three points below the governor. They apply the same logic in many municipalities.
It is precisely from that certainty that doubts and dilemmas arise. If Milei was functional to UP in the province, do we have to support it? Is it necessary to take care of the ballot in the dark room again, as some leaders admit to having done? And if doing so catapults him even more nationally, harming Massa? How to go in search of the Peronist vote that went to the libertarian?
In the provincial government and in a large part of the municipalities they tend to believe that the polarization has to be with the libertarian. A source from Kicillof’s environment confided to Letter P that the intention, in addition to growing, is to prevent part of the electorate that voted for Caroline Piparo go to JxC candidate, Nestor Grindetti, in the form of a useful vote. For that, “it is necessary to keep Milei on the field”, although, at the same time, it is necessary to go for the voter who historically was a Peronist and who, disappointed with the management, went to La Libertad Avanza. Unión por la Patria analyzes how to make Milei retain the vote that she took from JxC, but lose the one that she stole from Peronism.
When the discussion goes down to the municipalities it becomes even more complex. As this media reported, the mayors and mayors who won comfortably in their districts will focus on transferring their votes to Massa and Kicillof, for which they will strongly militarize the entire ballot in self-defense. They think Milei or Patricia Bullrich in the Casa Rosada they represent a danger to manage the municipalities.
But the picture is different in municipalities where the margin of difference was smaller or even lost, as in Ituzaingó and Morón. In dialogue with this medium, a mayor graphed it as follows: “We are going to play well for Axel and Massa, but without blowing ourselves up.” Less than a week before the PASO, in many districts the need -or not- to encourage the ballot cut with Milei at the head to avoid a local defeat is already being debated.
In this scheme of uncertainty, the convenience of a CFK more involved in the campaign is part of the debate. Especially in the Buenos Aires suburbs, there are those who consider that an active presence of the vice president could favor the recovery of voters from humble neighborhoods who went to the libertarian and that she could also convince part of the electorate who did not go to vote to now do so. do and in favor of Massa. Before the primaries, the mayor of Quilmes, Mayra Mendozahad assured that it was the intention that the vice president was in the district campaigning after the STEP.
However, there are also those who consider that this could be a double-edged sword, which harms the strategy aimed at the soft vote that was Horacio Rodriguez Larreta. Anyway, CFK turned a deaf ear to the request of maximum kirchner in the previous one to the STEP and only in her will be the decision to play actively or not. For now, he just returned from Santa Cruz, he met with Massa, Kirchner and Kicillof to outline the strategy to come.
The campaign speech is also under discussion within Unión por la Patria. Especially the Buenos Aires governor focused on the slogan “the rights or the right.” However, in the words of Massa, “the slap to politics” that the election result made us question that line. For the Evita Movement, this speech in the neighborhoods does not enter, because large sectors do not have those rights that UP says they put themselves at risk by voting for Milei or Bullrich. Part of the Peronist leadership linked to the mayors in the suburbs coincides with the diagnosis of the social organization. In the middle, there are those who insist on the idea of working on a focused and different discourse for each sector, although they recognize that this strategy is difficult to implement.
In any case, the different tribes of Peronism consulted by this means agree that we must let the days go by and see how things are heading, wait for the wave due to the surprise effect of Milei to pass and that Massa manages to accommodate the economic variables to generate some stability and income recovery. Without this last point, they say, the campaign will be uphill and there will be no strategy to meet the three objectives.
