Eight-term Peronist Governor Gildo Insfrán ran up a landslide win in Formosa Province on Sunday with more than two-thirds of the vote in a turnout estimated at over 60 percent of the electorate.
Partido Justicialista candidates had 67.15 percent of votes with 97 percent of votes tallied.
The Frente Amplio Formoseño opposition trailed far behind with just under 21 percent for the list of maverick libertarian senator Francisco Paoltroni, while the official La Libertad Avanza list obtained 11 percent.
The parties obtained similar numbers in elections for the constituent assembly, with 67.25 percent for PJ candidates, followed by 20.73 percent and 11.18 percent respectively.
With this clear result, Insfrán will seek to reasset his provincial hegemony via a constituent assembly defying the Supreme Court, which has questioned his indefinite re-election and ordered a review of the article in the provincial Constitution clearing it.
In last Sunday’s elections, the province of Formosa elected 15 provincial deputies or half the local Legislature and 30 constituent assembly delegates who will be entrusted with reviewing the provincial constitution.
In both categories Peronism prevailed, consolidating its institutional dominance.
Insfrán, 74, has ruled the northern border province for more than a quarter of a century. Via the governor, the Partido Justicialista (PJ) – Peronism’s main political party – pulled all its weight, effortlessly carrying the day once more in a province governed by Insfrán without interruption since 1995. The PJ competed with 56 collector lists and appealed to patronage through the delivery of bags of food and ruling party ballots in front of party offices.
During the campaign, Insfrán ignored his local rivals to aim his criticism directly at President Javier Milei’s government. Although not an actual candidate on the ticket, his image predominated in the campaign as ever. This extended to Insfrán questioning the national government’s economic policies on Election Day itself, while defending his own model.
Since the provincial constitution is to be amended along with the article permitting indefinite re-election, the aim would be to clear a single re-election “from this point onward,” thus allowing Insfrán to complete two more terms in power until he is 84.
The opposition have already analysed the governor’s intentions and are already looking at the possibility of submitting an injunction to the Supreme Court to ban any further Insfrán candidacy while others have indicated that he might be thinking of an “heir.”
Ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner – the national PJ chair who is serving a six-year jail term for corruption under house arrest – described the vote as “an excellent result for Peronism.”
“A few minutes ago I communicated with comrade Governor Gildo Insfrán to congratulate him on the excellent results for Peronism in the elections to pick Constituent Assembly delegates and provincial deputies,” wrote Fernández de Kirchner in a post on social media.
– TIMES/NA
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