Brazil & Southern Cone - July 2011 (ISSN 1741-4431)

The name of President Cristina Fernández’s running mate in the 23 October general election was guarded as the most sensitive of state secrets. In fact, Amado Boudou, the self-proclaimed “rocker minister” of economy, found out he was ‘the chosen one’ only 10 minutes before Fernández informed the nation on a TV and radio broadcast. In the run-up to the 25 June deadline to register candidacies, all eyes were on Fernández, who drafted the candidate lists for each district (24 in all) by herself.

Under Argentina’s electoral law, public officials seeking office are not required to step down for the campaign, but with Boudou as her number two,  and four other ministers running for legislative posts and one for deputy-mayor of Buenos Aires City (Caba), Fernández will have to carry out a major cabinet reshuffle if elected. Roberto Feletti, Boudou’s deputy, will be unable to take over the economy portfolio because he is heading the FPV’s list for national deputies for the Caba; Labour Minister Carlos Tomada aspires to become the deputy-mayor of the Caba as Daniel Filmus’s running mate (see previous story). The chief of cabinet, Aníbal Fernández, heads the list for the national senate for the province of Buenos Aires and Juan Manuel Abal Medina, the public communications minister, is third on the same list. The agriculture minister, Julián Domínguez, heads the list of national deputies for the same province. Fernández’s decision to place loyal ministers at the top of the lists effectively secures their election in October.

In addition to the number of ministers on the list, Fernández surprised everyone by giving the so-called Cristinista FPV youth group, la Cámpora, 10% of the total slots for the national congress [WR-11-26]. That decision, however, has already proved to be highly risky as voters seem to be turning their backs on a group of youngsters who appear to be climbing through the ranks more due to their unwavering loyalty to Fernández than to their political knowledge or experience.

For example, the governor of the southernmost province of Tierra del Fuego, Fabiana Ríos, of the local outfit Partido Social Patagónico (PSP), won re-election for another four years on 3 July, defeating Rosana Bertone, of the Frente para la Victoria (FPV), by just one percentage point in a run-off election. Ríos’s ability to overturn an eight-point deficit in the first round is largely explained by the fact that Bertone was seen as La Cámpora’s candidate. Although both contestants were Fernández’s allies, the electorate turned its back on an organisation that would not even exist without the president’s backing.

If Tierra del Fuego was not enough of a warning, the city of Buenos Aires’s electorate drove the point home on the 10 July election. While Mauricio Macri’s advantage over the FPV candidate, Daniel Filmus, was quite surprising, the fact that Filmus’s voters cut their ballots in the city’s legislative election, halving the support of a leading Camporista, was without a doubt the news of the day. Juan Cabandié, number one on the FPV’s list for the city legislature and co-founder of ‘La Cámpora’ with the president’s son, Máximo Kirchner, only obtained 14.07% of the votes, meaning that most people who voted for Filmus chose not to back the prominent Camporista.

• Pensions for unmarried gay couples
  In a landmark ruling, the Argentine supreme court recognized the right of gay couples living together to claim their partner’s pension in the event of death. The ruling was made in relation to a claim filed by a man who lived with his partner for 40 years and was denied access to his partner’s pension after the latter’s death in 1996.