New Poll Gives Kirchner Solid Election Lead

A poll published Thursday shows former president Néstor Kirchner with a solid six-point lead over rival opposition candidate Francisco de Narváez in their race to gain or maintain power in this Sunday’s congressional election.

The poll, conducted between June 24 and 25 on 2,500 people by Ibarómetro, has the ruling Victory Front Party candidate Kirchner getting 37.8% of the vote compared with 31.7% for Union Pro candidate De Narváez, who is a wealthy businessman seeking to end Kirchner’s seven-year grip on power.

Both politicians are expected to easily win congressional seats. The main objective of both sides is therefore to get more of their party’s candidates into Congress. Each ticket represents 35 candidates. Given Argentina’s proportional election system, each ticket will likely get seats, with the greatest number of seats going to the ticket with the highest percentage of votes.

Both Kirchner and De Narváez are running to represent the Province of Buenos Aires in the Lower House of Congress. The province is easily the most politically important among all of the country’s 23 provinces. It’s home to a whopping 37% of the national electorate, giving it huge influence over national politics.

Analysts divide the province into basically three areas: 1) The first belt or “cordón” surrounding the City of Buenos Aires; 2) The second belt; and 3) the interior of the province or farm country.

The first belt accounts for about 20% of the total vote, followed by 40% for the second belt and another 40% for the interior. Kirchner’s stronghold is considered to be in the second belt, which includes La Matanza, Quilmes, Merlo, Morón, Ezeiza, and Ituzaingó (my old town) and other cities.

If Kirchner does poorly in these areas, which is doubtful, he’s doomed. He is far less popular closer to the City of Buenos Aires (and is incredibly unpopular inside the city) while he is vilified in the farm belt, where his agriculture policies are largely despised.

But no party in the country has focused its political machinery more on one area, the second belt, than the former president’s Victory Front Party.

It’s hard to know which polls are most reliable. Analysts tend to say the polling firm Poliarquia is the most respected and objective major political polling firm in Argentina.

Its latest poll, published Friday in La Nación, showed De Narváez 2.5 points ahead of Kirchner. But both the former president and his wife have bashed Poliarquia, claiming it’s nothing but a tool of La Nación, which, according to the Kirchners, is aligned with the “oligarchs” and has a vested interest in opposing the government.

The bulk of the country’s election results are expected to be in by around midnight on Sunday.

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