MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Concern in Argentina over voters' turnout and lack of interest

Argentina's recent general elections marked the lowest voters' turnout since 1922 according to one of the country's leading political analysts Rosendo Fraga. Turnout last October was 71.8%, compared to the 78.2% of the previous election in 2003.

"This is showing that voters' interest in politics and politicians is plummeting. Data from Argentine presidential elections in the last twenty years confirms a drop in the positive vote", said Fraga. The fall in turnout includes not voting on election day and void or annulled ballot. The difference in turnout between 2003 and October 2007 was 6.4 points. The void vote which in the previous presidential election was only 0.99% ballooned to 4.8% in 2007, the highest since 1963 when the leading Peronist party was banned from participating and void balloting turned into a form of political expression. Fraga also underlines that last October, when Mrs. Kirchner was elected president, turnout for the candidates was low with only 65.9% of the Electoral Registrar, 9.6 points less than four years ago. "This is alarming because at this rate if we loose another ten points, in 2011 the positive vote for candidates would fall to 56%, which must be of concern in a country where voting is compulsory", emphasized Fraga. "We owe ourselves an open, frank and sincere debate about what happened, so it won't happen again; it's as if one out of three voters in the electoral registrar decide not to vote, to vote void or annulled. This could begin to question the legitimacy of the political system", he emphasized.