Tierra del Fuego: radical K and pure camporistas face the split version of JvC and there are doubts about the impact of Javier Milei’s pastor

(Special envoy to Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego).- As in Salta, La Pampa and San Juan, today, starting at 8 o’clock, he will have to go to the dark room in the most extreme south of the country, where electoral autumn temperatures are around three degrees. From 8 o’clock the polls will be enabled in the three cities of Land of Fire -Ushuaia, Río Grande and Tolhuin-, who elect governor, mayors, legislators and councilors in elections that appear sung in favor of an officialism who achieved formulas of wide Unity, between a sector of the UCR, the PJ and the Movimiento Popular Fueguino, against a divided opposition that disputes the second place.

The radical governor K of Concertación Forja, Gustavo Melella, and the municipal heads of La Cámpora in Ushuaia, Martin Vuoto, and in Rio Grande, Martin Perez, they swept under the rug, until further notice, the rispities that have confronted them over the past four years, and forced a truce to ensure their re-election. All the polls give them winners against the two labels between which the opposition vote will disintegrate: Together for Change led by the historic local leader of the UCR, Pablo Blanco and Federico Frigerio; and the Pro, commanded by another old Fuegian wolf, Héctor “Tito” Stefani with a former Melella official, Paulino Rossi.

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According to projections, during the next four years little will change for the Fuegians, who would be mostly inclined to maintain the status quo. In addition to being re-elected, Melella would maintain control over the Legislature, where practically all legislators support the Executive’s projects in a delicate balance maintained by positions and political favors. Twice mayor of Río Grande, and with his first term to complete, he is preparing to establish himself with a system of transversality at the head of the southernmost province of the country, and he has already warned that his plan for the next period is reform the Constitution.

He said it in an interview with a local media outlet, in full controversy in the North over the decision of the Supreme Court that suspended, five days before, the elections for governor and vice president in Tucuman and San Juan, where john Manzur and Sergio One C They seek to remain in power. But in the environment of “the teacher”, as Melella is called in these lands, they swear that he has no intention of enabling the re-reelection by 2027. Instead, they say, it seeks to improve practical aspects of the political and economic life of the province, such as the times for the approval and execution of public works and the voting system. They distrust the opposition.

local version of Together for Change is diametrically opposed of the mega front that managed to form Melella. It is going through a political and personal confrontation between its leaders, who could not agree to compete together and accuse each other of the same sin: favoring the ruling party.

In the figures of Blanco and Stefani, beyond their long and intertwined history of crosses for local issues, the national internship is reflected, with particularities. The first has the support of the presidential candidate and holder of Pro, Patricia Bullrich; of the former governor of Buenos Aires, Maria Eugenia Vidal; and the head of the UCR, another candidate for the Rivadavia chair, Gerardo Morales. The second is sponsored by the mayor of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodriguez Larreta, who is also emerging as a candidate for the Casa Rosada in the PASO of August 13.

Each one of the aforementioned JxC leaders traveled the 3,500 kilometers that separate Tierra del Fuego from the federal capital, separately, to take photos with their respective political protégés and post them on Twitter. The province represents a very small percentage of the national register, and the opposition has few chances of prevailing for executive positions. But the national references are betting in the medium and long term on a port district and one of the closest points to Antarctica, which is of great interest to the United States and China due to its location on the geopolitical map.

The scenario appears even more complicated for radicals and macristas due to the slow but sustained consolidation of the local version of the extreme right of Javier Miley, represented here by the evangelical pastor, Andrea Almirón de Pauli, leader of the long-standing church “There is life in Jesus” and militant against legal abortion. In April, the leader of Freedom Advances disembarked in this city and accompanied her on a walk through the center, where they ended up surrounded by dozens of young people who pushed each other to take photos with the newcomer. One of the few doubts for these foreseeable elections is about the percentage that will slip out of the hands of the Pro and the non-Melellista UCR through the libertarian path.

Unlike the opponents, no national leader went to visit Melella or the ultra k mayors during the campaign. Each one in their own way, since last year they all warned the gravitational centers of the official national power that they would seek to protect their bulging political capitals from the possibly harmful interference from “Buenos Aires” leaders. And they do it like that. Alberto Fernández, Cristina Kirchner and Sergio Massa, the founders of the Frente de Todos, who register high percentages of negative image, are absolutely absent from the proselytizing billboard in the three cities that, although scarce, focuses on municipal or provincial references.

Melella, however, has his preference in the national power scheme. She has not yet ruled in favor of any of the FDT presidential candidates, who have not yet said clearly if they are going to compete. But his collaborators slip that she has better tune with Massawith whom he strengthened relations during his tenure as president of the Chamber of Deputies, with a carefully negotiated exchange of votes for works, at times when, they say in the province, the Ministry of Public Works disbursed funds for Kirchner municipalities to the detriment of the national jurisdiction.

The Camporawhich never achieved too many municipalities beyond the limits of the suburbs, stomps on the two main cities, Rio Grande and Ushuaia. This presence, highly valued by the national leaders k, explains the reluctance of Cristina Kirchner to openly embrace Melella, despite the fact that in 2014 “the priest” openly declared himself a Kirchnerist in his alliance with Forja, the party of the then Undersecretary of the Presidency, Gustavo Lopez that helped him achieve re-election as municipal head of the most populous district in the province, to later make the leap to the governorship. “It is logical that they want to privilege the cigars themselves. Their problem is that the management they have is not on Gustavo’s heels”, reasoned a provincial official in a well-known cafe in the center of Río Grande in the run-up to the election.

There are those who predict that the alliance between radicals ky camporistas for this election will break the day after the vote. Máximo Kirchner’s Fuegian bishops have their own provincial aspirations. And in 2027, both their chances of reelection are running out. His next logical step is the chair that Melella occupies today.

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