MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentine broad front opens possibility of runoff dispute in 2015 presidential election

Binner, Scioli, Massa, Cobos, Macri , one of them will possibly replace Cristina Fernandez when she steps down in December 2015

Political analyst Rosendo Fraga believes that with the integration this week of the Broad Front, Argentina in the 2015 presidential elections in the hypothetical case of a runoff, would experience a dispute not between two Peronists options, as opinion polls have indicated to far, but with a non Peronist alternative.

 But Fraga also points out that the idea of a broad front is not new in recent Argentine politics: in the mid-term legislative elections of 2009, there was a left leaning Social and Civic Accord made up of Socialists, Radicals, the GEN and the Civic Coalition which mustered 30% of cast votes.

However in the presidential election of 2011, the Social and Civic front split in three, with Socialist Hermes Binner catching 17% of the vote; the Radicals of Ricardo Alfonsín, 10% and the Civic Coalition from Elisa Carrió, 2%. In other words adding up to 29%, as two years before, but the division enabled President Cristina Fernandez' re-election victory with the greatest difference over the runner up (more than forty percentage points) and an overall performance with 54% of the vote which would make the old leader Peron envious.

Again in the midterm legislative elections of 2013 the left leaning front again voted divided, with no national organization of net.

But now, says Fraga the 2009 experience is back with the addition of some smaller even more left leaning groupings, which did not integrate in previous experiences.

“The thirteen public opinion polls on vote intention for president published in the last six months since the midterm election show Tigre mayor and lawmaker Sergio Massa in first place followed by Daniel Scioli, Buenos Aires province governor”. Both belong to the ruling Peronist movement, the first dissident and the second aligned with Cristina Fernandez.

However the dispersed votes from Hermes Binner, Julio Cobos, Elisa Carrió and Ernesto Sanz, now are under an only electoral banner, together they could garner almost the same percentage as governor Scioli. Thus the Broad Front has emerged as a real electoral competitive alternative with the possibility of disputing the 2015 election.

Thus the Argentine political scenario is divided in four main forces: two of Peronist roots, the Renewal Front of Massa and the Victory Front of governor Scioli who might have to confront challengers sponsored by Cristina Fernandez, such as Entre Rios governor Sergio Uribarri or Minister Florencio Randazzo. The other two groupings are non Peronist: the left leaning broad front or FAP-UNEN and PRO with conservative Mauricio Macri, mayor of the Buenos Aires City.

These two last groupings allied could be even more challenging, however they reject Macri as 'ideologically different' and it's very hard to imagine a consensus could be reached.

Nevertheless a hypothetical run off in 2015, could after all eliminate the two Peronist alternatives scenario and limit it to only one Peronist alternative. Likewise such an alliance would force Macri to change his electoral strategy since he would no longer be a kind of 'non political' hopeful.

But there is another option without integration, leaving aside ideology and thinking in electoral terms, the broad front and PRO could agree to the non Peronist alternative in the runoff.

Concluding for Fraga, the new political alternative born this week in Buenos Aires opens the possibility of a hypothetical runoff with no longer two Peronist alternatives, as public opinion polls have been constantly confirming, so far.