MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Opposition candidates in Argentina have 2023 elections in sight

“The power of Kirchnerism is at stake,” Vidal said

The opposition Together for a Change (JxC) coalition candidates have summed up their proposals for Sunday's mid-term elections with the 2023 presidential contest insight.

Former Buenos Aires Governor María Eugenia Vidal and Buenos Aires Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta called for the return to power of the party which once led Mauricio Macri to the presidency.

With victory already seemingly in the bag as far as the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA) is concerned, speeches were focused on longer-term goals.

Rodríguez Larreta, who succeeded Macri as CABA's chief executive, insisted: “Here we did it and here we can [do it again], with work.”

“We will return, we will return ...” to the national Government in 2023, chanted supporters (Macri included).

Candidates and party leaders waived flags reading “enough” about the current inflation and alleged corruption on the part of the government of President Alberto Fernández.

For JxC 2021 is a fight already won, but the opposition alliance will risk a key number of seats in Congress.

But for JxC the rival is not the FdT, but rather neoliberal far-right candidate Javier Milei, who has been preaching both FdT and JxC was more of the same traditional politics. According to most polls, Milei is poised to come in second at the CABA elections, thus snatching some seats from JxC.

Roy Cortina (Socialist), Patricia Bullrich, Martín Lousteau (former economy minister under Cristina Fernández de Kirchner), Ricardo López Murphy (former economy minister under Fernando de la Rúa), Paula Olivetto, Martín Tetaz and Larreta were joined by Macri and Vidal for the closing speeches. They attacked the lockdowns, the closure of schools and “the worst handling of the pandemic.”

“Until very recently, nothing that Cristina did not want to discuss could be debated in Argentina,” said Lousteau, who added that “now it's different, because of the vote, that has changed.”

Vidal said, “this November 14 we have to shout louder, it has to be thunderous enough”. She also referred to closed schools and “the eternal quarantine.” She longed for “a bloc of 120 deputies” because “the power of Kirchnerism is at stake.”