MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands born Alejandro Betts entitled to vote in coming Argentine elections

Alejandro Betts was born in Stanley and at the end of the conflict in 1982 left for Argentina with his Argentine fiancé

For the first time a man born in the Falkland Islands, will be voting in the coming Argentine elections, according to reports in the Buenos Aires media. The man is Alejandro Betts, 58, who received his Argentine ID at a ceremony in the Argentine embassy before United Nations, and will thus be eligible to cast a ballot in the coming Tierra del Fuego provincial and municipal elections.

 Betts, according to the reports will be voting in Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, following on a decision from the Provincial Electoral Board and the City of Ushuaia, which in a joint session agreed to invite Betts to participate in the elections and thus “guarantee his constitutional right to vote for candidates of his choosing”, according to Argentine news agency DYN.

Betts who left the Falklands following the 1982 conflict with his Argentine fiancé, has participated on several occasions in representation of Argentine Malvinas claim before the UN Decolonization Committee or C24 and will now become the first Argentine citizen with address in the Falklands to be registered and able to vote in Argentina.

The Tierra del Fuego Electoral board argued that Betts, who was born in Port Stanley, “has publicly expressed his support for Argentina's sovereignty claims over the Islands”.

Why Ushuaia? Because according to Argentine law the most austral Argentine territory is officially identified as Tierra del Fuego, Argentine Antarctica and South Atlantic Islands, and thus includes the Falklands, where Betts supposedly has his original domicile and address.

This is a full year of elections in Argentina with the main dispute next October when the successor of Cristina Fernandez, half the Lower House and a third of the Senate will be renewed. However since Argentina is a federal state, the different 24 provinces will also be holding their regional and municipal elections, plus primaries, at their chosen dates.

Betts was born in Stanley from a long established several generations family in the Falklands and in 1982 had an affair with an Argentine woman in the Islands and following the 1982 conflict left the for Argentina, leaving behind his Falklands' family and children.