Buenos Aires and Corrientes: A tale of two provinces

Since this newspaper also has readers in Buenos Aires Province (as a glance at “Your View” on its second page will quickly show), this column intends to respect the ‘veda’ electoral curfew now in force for tomorrow’s provincial midterms – so much so that quite apart from banishing opinion polls, there will be no speculation as to winners and losers, or whether the electorate will be voting on national and provincial issues with an effort made to avoid even naming candidates.

So how can this space be filled while respecting the veda? Firstly, scrutinising the results of last Sunday’s gubernatorial election and provincial midterms in Corrientes previewed in last weekend’s column. And secondly, looking at Buenos Aires Province itself, the eight sections etc. rather than the electoral contestants – the winners and losers and the national impact will all be examined in next week’s column on the basis of concrete results rather than guestimates or wishful thinking. 

The final results in Corrientes (often ignored by other newspapers with election night coverage which is not followed up, especially where inland provinces are concerned) were not available until deep into Monday due to a breakdown of the electronics. 

The runaway winner was Juan Pablo Valdés, 42, brother of outgoing governor Gustavo Valdés and running for the Radical-led ruling coalition under the label of Vamos Corrientes, with 51.8 percent, thus averting a September 21 run-off against the runner-up, Martín ‘Tincho’ Ascuar of Limpiar Corrientes rallying local Peronists with 19.9 percent. Valdés would have come closer to the 76.9 percent of his brother in 2021 had it not been for former three-term Radical governor Ricardo Colombi (Encuentro por Corrientes) polling 16.7 percent from the same electoral base as the ruling coalition. A humiliating single-digit fourth place with 9.5 percent for the national ruling party La Libertad Avanza running under deputy Lisandro Almirón, who was imposed by Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei – plenty of after-the-match inquests in libertarian circles over the wisdom of her “purple or nothing” approach when trying to cut a deal with the provincial government. Combining the above four percentages leaves just over two percent to be shared by the other three gubernatorial candidates – Communist Sonia López (Cambiá Corrientes), the rogue libertarian Carlos ‘Teke’ Romero (Partido Ahora) and Adriana Vega for the fringe Partido de la Esperanza.

The gubernatorial voting totally overshadowed the legislative midterms where 15 provincial deputies and five senators were at stake. The ruling Radical-led coalition held all nine seats in the legislature for a total 18 of the 30 with the other six seats going three, two and one for the Peronists (for a total of five), Colombi (three) and the libertarians (three) respectively. The libertarians failed to break into the provincial senate where Vamos Corrientes laid claim to three seats with one each for the Peronists and Colombi – the governor has a two-thirds majority of the 15-seat senate with three Peronist senators and two for Colombi.

The result was so clear-cut that it requires little further comment. The overwhelming mandate for the gubernatorial sibling was perhaps less the result of a brilliant provincial administration than Vamos Corrientes casting an extremely broad net with over 30 parties and almost 50 different lists all topped with the Valdés surname – something for everybody with a pitch to the middle ground. Another striking feature of the Corrientes election was the turnout of 72.4 percent, way above the average of just over half the electorate from the provincial voting so far (also widely forecast for tomorrow’s bout in Buenos Aires Province) – in such a presidential democracy as Argentina having the top job at stake seems to make all the difference.

Provincial showdown

Corrientes has an electorate of almost a million but only a fraction of Buenos Aires Province, whose population outnumbers over two-thirds (160) of the world’s 233 countries and territories.

This electorate of 14,376,592 voters is distributed among eight sections, of which some explanation is compatible with the veda curfew. This multiplicity of sections makes for more than one interpretation of the final result since the most votes and the most seats will not necessarily go the same way. The first and third sections (roughly speaking, the northern and southern halves of Greater Buenos Aires respectively) have over 71 percent of this electorate but 33 of the 92 provincial deputies and 17 of the 46 senators – a popular vote win based on the Greater Buenos Aires masses is thus no guarantee of more seats and nor will Greater Buenos Aires necessarily define the popular vote, as claimed by so many pundits, despite housing over two-thirds of the electorate if a small difference there is outweighed by much bigger margins inland. This mismatch results from an unchanged 1934 constitutional reform largely based on the 1914 census when the provincial population was two million (with the Federal Capital then vastly outnumbering its outlying suburbs which now multiply it fourfold).

Aside from this lopsided representation, tomorrow’s midterms have a curious format – half of the two houses will be renewed with 46 deputies in four of the eight sections and 23 senators in the other four. The deputies will be picked in the second (11 seats), third (18), sixth (11) and eighth (six) sections with the senators coming from the first (eight seats), fourth (seven), fifth (five) and seventh (three) sections.

Time to identify these sections beyond their numbers. The first and third have already been located in Greater Buenos Aires – contrary to general opinion, the first section is actually the province’s first in population too with 30,000 more voters than the third even if pundits are forever underlining the massive electoral weight of such districts of the third as La Matanza, Lomas de Zamora and Quilmes. The eighth section is limited to the provincial capital of La Plata (almost 640,000 voters). The only section outside Greater Buenos Aires with a seven-digit electorate (1.336 million) is the eastern fifth thanks largely to Mar de Plata with Tandil also important. All other sections have electorates of over half a million except the highly rural seventh in the middle of the province (285,000 voters) where Olavarría and Azul are the only towns of any size. The second section sits at the top of the province with Delta towns like San Nicolás and Zárate while the vast southern sixth section occupies the bottom with Bahía Blanca dominant. Finally, the fourth section with Junín and Chivilcoy its chief towns lies in the northwest.

Space running out so that’s all for now, folks – blame it on the veda but full analysis next Saturday.