Argentina Seeks To Move Elections Forward

President Cristina Fernández, never wimpish about rocking the political establishment, said Friday she will ask Congress to move its national election four months ahead of schedule. In a bold move that was immediately seen as a sign of her administration’s weakness amid the global economic crisis, Fernández called for the election to be held on June 28 instead of in late October.

Fernández said the move aims to bolster the country’s ability to deal with a “grave” economic crisis. “It would be almost suicidal to have everyone engaging in political battles when the world is falling into pieces,” Fernández said, adding that the world economy is “a disaster.”

Congress must first approve the plan with a simple majority vote. For more details and background, click here for a WSJ story that my colleagues and I did Friday. Meantime, here are some possible interpretations of the move:

Fernández really does believe the country will be better able to deal with the economic crisis if the political system isn’t bogged down most of the year in campaign mode.

The president, who already has a remarkably low approval rating of just 29% (according to a recent Poliarquía poll), fears her government and its ruling coallition in Congress will lose additional support if, as is expected, the economy continues to weaken throughout the year. With economists saying the brunt of the global crisis will begin to be felt here in the second half of 2009, there’s good reason to hold the election early to avoid even greater losses in October.

About half a dozen former Kirchner allies in Congress have defected from the ruling coalition in recent weeks. Their defections were seen as a bid to distance themselves from the increasingly unpopular Kichners ahead of the October election. Moving the election forward forces these and other opposition politicians to show their cards and define their strategies almost immediately. It puts enormous pressure on them to build coalitions, define their candidacies and seal their post-Kirchner alliances. With much of the opposition in disarray, it will be harder for the opposition to forge consensus and conduct well-conceived campaigns within the short period of time that remains between now and June 28.

Moving the election forward puts Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri in a bit of a bind. Macri moved the city’s election forward just a day before the Kichners did. He now can hardly criticize the Kirchner’s for doing what he himself did just hours before. Macri sought to differentiate the city’s election from the national election, thereby making the city vote a referendum on his government and not on the Kirchners. But this will be harder to do now that both elections could be held on the same day.

Moving the election forward puts pressure on Macri, former Buenos Aires Governor Felipe Solá and tatooed businessman-turned-politician Francisco de Narváez to define their strategy for gaining power in Buenos Aires Province. The three politicians recently have been strategizing to undue the Kirchners’ power in the all-important province. Tensions already had been rising between Solá and de Narváez over who would lead the ticket in the province. Now with Friday’s announcement, the two will have to move faster than ever to figure out who will lead their campaign. The wealthier De Narváez appeared confident Friday, saying, basically, “bring it on,” while a defeated-looking Solá appeared shaken by the news and said he was entirely opposed to chaging the election’s date.

Changing the date proves, under one reading, that the Kirchners simply don’t have the money they want to conduct the campaign they’d like through October. With tax revenue set to decline, the government needs all the cash it can get to pay down its debt and finance consumption and public works projects.

Poll numbers for the president and her husband have been weak for almost a year. With the economy set to contract, their approval ratings will likely fall further. They Kirchners, in short, have neither the cash nor the political support to wait out the crisis. They’ve got to play their hand now because the cards they’ll be dealt later in the year will only be worse.

Former President Nestor Kirchner had no choice but to change the date. He’s planning to run for Congress as a Lower House Deputy in Buenos Aires Province. His poll numbers, as friend and columnist Carlos Pagni wrote in La Nación, show Kirchner to be virtually tied with the Macri-De Narváez-Solá trio. But as Pagni noted in his column, Kirchner’s numbers are weakening, making it imperative that he stop the trio in its tracks before it’s too late.

Political campaign coverage in the local press will now help to balance out economic news that is certain to be increasingly negative in the months ahead. The Kichners will find it easier to distract attention from the economic crisis while people and the media focus on politics. Criticism of economic policy and all other federal matters will now be dismissed by the Kirchners as political bickering and campaign tactics. Meanwhile, farmers, whom the Kirchners have long tried to label as excessively political, will now be described as campaign crusaders instead of, well, farmers with legitimate complaints about agriculture policy.

If anyone was considering investing in Argentina, it’s now much more likely that any such decisions will be put off until after the election. After all, who would want to spend a lot of money without knowing what kind of government and what kind of policies will emerge after June. Will the government be weakened, forcing it to seek consensus and negotiate policy? Or will it be strengthened and even more prone to scoff at consensus. Any potential delay in investment would be detrimental to the economy at a time when private sector spending is more needed than it has been in years to avoid a serious setback.

Opposition parties had been working on plans to reform Argentina’s outdated ballot system. The Kirchners opposed reforming the system, saying it would be costly and impracticable. Critics say the only reason to oppose reforming the ballot system is that the current system makes it easier to commit electoral fraud. Whatever the case, there’s virtually no chance that any reform can be implemented in just three months.

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