MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Nestor Kirchner leads in polls for mid term election, but could not be enough

A desperate effort to show that the Kirchner-model is still on control of the situation

Former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner who is running for a seat in the Lower House in this month’s mid term elections is ahead in all public opinion polls, although closely followed by the main opposition candidate Francisco de Narvaez.

Both are competing for seats in the province of Buenos Aires, the most important electoral circumscription in Argentina, and on which the Kirchners dominance, with trade unions support and patronizing, rests.

In the four public opinion polls published over the weekend, Nestor Kirchner leads with 28.1 to 38.3% of vote intention while De Narvaez figures between 23.9% and 29.1%.

The mid term election which renews half the Lower House 257 seats and a third of the 72 Senate seats takes place on June 28th and has become, with the ex-president running for a seat, in a plebiscite on his wife’s administration President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner who took office from him in 2007.

The poll that most favours Mr. Kirchner is from Ricardo Rouvier who has him with a vote intention of 38.3% and nine points ahead of De Narvaez with 29.1%. Mr. De Narvaez a successful entrepreneur is running with the support of Conservative groups from the city of Buenos Aires and dissidents from the ruling Peronist movement who are in disagreement with the Kirchners, feeling that after June their time has come.

At the other extreme consultants Management & Fit also has Kirchner leading but the difference drops to five points, 28.1% and 23.9%.

Mr. Kirchner decided to run for a seat in the Lower House following the quick deterioration of the Argentine economy and of the so called progressive “Kirchner-model” which has been trapped by the global crisis and inflation and ballooning costs domestically.

Mid term elections according to the Argentine calendar should have taken place in October, but the Kirchners forced their advancement precisely because of the precarious economic and financial situation.

So even if Mr. Kirchner is elected and some of the candidates sponsored by the ruling couple also manage to get through, most political analysts agree that on June 29th they will no longer have an absolute majority in Congress, possibly simple majority, and will therefore have to come to speaking terms with the political spectrum, something which the ever so authoritarian Kirchners despise.

Buenos Aires daily Clarín also published last Sunday that Mr. De Narvaez and Mr. Kirchner are the richest candidates running for office according to their income and assets statements to the revenue taxing office.

Mr. De Narváez figures with assets totalling the equivalent of 24.5 million US dollars and Mr. Kirchner with 5.3 million US dollars.