Polling stations open for Argentina’s primary elections

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Argentina’s polling stations opened at 8 AM local time (11.00 GMT) this Sunday, September 12, for the legislative primary elections held with special sanitary protocols due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Some 34.3 million Argentines are eligible to vote this Sunday to define the lists of candidates who will be qualified to compete in the elections of November 14, in which 127 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 24 of the 72 seats in the Senate will be disputed.

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Nearly 95,000 military and security forces are guarding the 101,457 polling stations distributed in 17,092 schools and other precincts throughout the country, which will be open until 6 PM local time (21:00 GMT) for voting.

According to the Argentine government, responsible for the provisional vote count to be carried out this Sunday night, due to the complexity of this election, the dissemination of the first official results could be delayed until 11 PM local time (2:00 GMT on Monday), although the opposition has demanded that they be disseminated before that time.

In charge of the Electoral Justice and with legal validity, the definitive count will begin next Tuesday.

VOTING IN PANDEMIC

This election presents the unprecedented particularity of a series of sanitary measures that must be respected at the polling stations given the pandemic, which has caused more than 113,000 deaths and some 5.2 million infected.

The primaries, in fact, had initially been called for August 8 but were rescheduled because of the second wave of covid-19.

Although the epidemiological situation has improved since the peak of contagions at the end of May, the electoral authorities elaborated a special sanitary protocol. They ordered an increase in the number of voting centers to avoid overcrowding.

Among other measures, it is mandatory for voters to respect a minimum distance of two meters between each other and, if necessary, to wait in line outside the schools to enter to vote.

There are also “sanitary facilitators” in charge of ordering the entrance and verifying that citizens use masks and hand sanitizers in each voting center.

ELECTORAL TEST

These primary elections, mandatory for both political parties and voters between 18 and 69 years old, will be the first ones faced by President Alberto Fernández since his becoming president at the end of 2019.

Political forces must obtain at least 1.5% of the votes to compete in the November elections in the primaries.

Each political front or party may present in this Sunday’s election more than one list of candidates to settle its internal elections with the popular vote. Still, it may also present a single list of unity and only seek the minimum of 1.5% of the votes to access the November elections.

The outcome of the primary is at stake in four key districts, the most populous of the country: the provinces of Buenos Aires (37 % of the national electoral roll), Córdoba (8.69 %) and Santa Fe (8.06 %), and the Argentine capital city (7.43 %).

With a view to the legislative elections, the ruling Frente de Todos, which is running in these primaries with unity lists in most of the districts, aspires to maintain its majority in the Senate and to increase its block in the Chamber of Deputies to achieve, with the support of allied parties, an absolute majority for voting on key laws.

Meanwhile, Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change), the largest opposition front, has chosen to settle this Sunday internal election between the Unión Cívica Radical and the pro-Macrista Propuesta Republicana -the main forces within the opposition alliance- in several key districts so that this primary will redefine in some way the balance of forces within the coalition.

In the Parliament, Juntos por el Cambio aspires to improve its first minority position in the Senate and win more seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the second-largest bloc behind the ruling party.