News of election campaign

The City and the Senate

15-11-2025 05:05 While the government’s overall midterm triumph represented a huge shift from gloomy pre-electoral expectations, this city’s results did not show that much change from last May’s local voting.

by Michael Soltys

Chile's Security Crisis

Pining for Pinochet: how crime fanned nostalgia for Chile's dictator

04-11-2025 18:40 As crime rates increase in Chile, public anxiety grows and demands for stronger security measures continue.

Campaign comments

The colour purple

01-11-2025 06:10 Despite governing the province for 34 of the last 42 years, the Peronists ran up a hat-trick of national midterm defeats there last Sunday – in 2017, in 2021 and in 2025.

by Michael Soltys

Kast Migrant Policy

Chile’s far-right candidate says migrants must pay for their own deportation

28-10-2025 15:50 Far-right candidate José Antonio Kast pledges migrants will cover their own deportation costs as Chile’s election campaign intensifies.

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

151 shades of grey

25-10-2025 05:58 Voters are being asked to select not the next president but 127 deputies and 24 senators for which 217 lists are contending in the 23 provinces and this City with a total 1,648 candidates. The multiplicity of combinations arising from these numbers points to an infinity of results, each one of which would make the parliamentary negotiations lying ahead slightly different with no chance of any overall majority – 151 shades of grey.

by Michael Soltys

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

Trump card or joker in the pack?

18-10-2025 06:15 Milei’s government is confident of success in only seven of Argentina's 24 districts but this fails to point out that fears of defeat are also only limited to seven provinces, with the other 10 up in the air.

by Michael Soltys

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

‘Panic Show’ name of the game

11-10-2025 06:00 We are told that the choice is “libertad or kirchnerismo” but neither libertarians nor Kirchnerism will be able to do very much with the 110 of the 257 seats accruing to whoever wins – Argentina’s middle ground has far less seats than Brazil’s "centrão" but could carry equivalent clout.

by Michael Soltys

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

A spooky Halloween earlier this month?

04-10-2025 06:38 To lay any claim to a positive result, pundits suggest that Milei would need to be the leading minority with at least 35 percent of the vote. The first objective looks like a done deal since LLA is the only nationwide contender.

by Michael Soltys

Campaign comments

The future’s not ours to see

27-09-2025 06:25 Mayoral tails wagged gubernatorial and presidential dogs in Buenos Aires Province but next month’s midterms stand to be genuinely, not synthetically national with the state of the economy and the quality of governance deciding votes.

by Michael Soltys

Immigration & Politics

Chile presidential hopeful vows to deport 'all' undocumented migrants

23-09-2025 13:18 Far-right candidate José Antonio Kast says he will deport all undocumented migrants from national territory if elected.

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

The lion sleeps tonight

20-09-2025 06:31 Milei actually polled a higher percentage in Buenos Aires Province this month than in BA City last May, yet the former is unanimously deemed an unmitigated disaster while the latter was a resounding triumph.

by Michael Soltys

Campaign comments

Blast from the past

13-09-2025 06:09 Last Sunday’s election was very much the mayoral tail wagging the dog and here we’re not just talking about Greater Buenos Aires Peronist “barons” – almost the only successes of third parties came thanks to the PRO mayors bucking the Milei alliance, proving mayoral clout beyond the general trend.

by Michael Soltys

Campaign comments

Jousting in the lists

16-08-2025 06:30 In broad terms, President Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza will be flying solo in half the country whereas Peronism is presenting a united front in three-quarters of the districts, including all the most important except Córdoba.

by Michael Soltys

Campaign comments

Deadlines or lifelines?

09-08-2025 06:52 We have confirmation of one important definition – the La Libertad Avanza far right and the PRO centre-right extending their Buenos Aires Province alliance to this city.

by Michael Soltys

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

Independence for whom?

12-07-2025 06:13 The Independence Day alliance on the right leaves the Peronists playing catch up after their stab at unification at the Partido Justicialista Congress.

by Michael Soltys

Campaign comments

On a mission in omission

07-06-2025 06:34 Voting for provincial deputies in Misiones is more likely to be a landslide for the local ruling party than any electoral earthquake.

by Michael Soltys

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

Where angels fear to tread

31-05-2025 06:33 The demolition job suffered by PRO in the City has most provinces now thinking twice about advancing their elections and exposing local hegemonies to the forces of heaven.

by Michael Soltys

ELECTIONS 2025

Paid militants, tensions, anger at Macri – inside Adorni’s campaign finale

15-05-2025 13:12 Manuel Adorni, heading La Libertad Avanza’s list for the City Legislature elections, accompanied by Javier and Karina Milei, Cabinet ministers and others at his closing campaign rally in Recoleta – but tensions are brewing behind the scenes.

by Giselle Leclercq

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

Four-by-four voting

10-05-2025 07:20 Next weekend’s City race hogs the electoral limelight but there is voting even closer in time – like tomorrow when four provinces will be advancing their midterms.

by Michael Soltys

Campaign comments

And so it begins

12-04-2025 05:22 This year’s midterm voting begins tomorrow in the major province of Santa Fe with the constituent assembly elections.

by Michael Soltys

UNITED STATES ELECTION 2024

Harris and Trump last campaign push as polls deadlocked

04-11-2024 15:36 US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in a tight race, with both making a final push to rally supporters and gain an advantage.

UNITED STATES ELECTION 2024

Rumours, lies and disinformation: ‘A lot of crazy’ in US election

03-11-2024 09:09 Elon Musk, Donald Trump helping amplify falsehoods about integrity of US election; Foreign actors also blamed by officials in Washington for sowing chaos.

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

Going to the dogs?

16-12-2023 07:20 This final election 2023 column concludes a series running the length of the campaign – now it’s time to detail the resulting political architecture in the present tense.

by Michael Soltys

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

They also serve…

02-12-2023 10:23 That stateside visit threw something of a spanner into what is anyway very much a stop-go process of transition and Cabinet-building – Milei would seem anxious to remind people of the first half of his self-definition as an anarcho-capitalist.

by Michael Soltys

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

Method in his madness?

25-11-2023 14:16 Javier Milei’s solitary rise to the top from almost nowhere in a couple of years is more apparent than real. The key to this success is more like the solution to Agatha Christie’s 'Murder on the Orient Express' – they all did it.

by Michael Soltys

CAMPAIGN COMMENTS

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

18-11-2023 06:42 Democratic voting in Argentina ran on the basis of simple majorities until 1972 when that system was a non-starter for a military régime since it would guarantee victory for a Juan Domingo Perón. In order to give themselves the faint chance of the anti-Peronist chunk of society outnumbering the Peronist masses if obliged to vote en bloc, they introduced a system whereby nothing short of an absolute majority would permit victory in the first round.

by Michael Soltys