Surveys from the X-ray of the PASO place the winner of the Frente de Todos with 50% of the votes and an advantage of more than 20 points compared to Together for Change, which would not require a second round.
Given this fact, the next president of Argentina has before him the following challenges in different orders , which are the following:
In the economic aspect , it will have to sustain the pressure of the different funds that have Argentine debt and the IMF, in addition to the demands of the citizens who wish to see their purchasing power recovered, greatly reduced throughout this term. The word default or suspension of payments has begun to be used in rating agencies.
Another challenge for Fernández has to do with his ability to develop his government plan due to the wide and diverse forces that converge in his candidacy, particularly his vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who provided much support in the province of Buenos Aires, but it is also true that Fernández has already achieved support in provinces historically opposed to Kirchnerism, the case of Córdoba, Mendoza and Santa Fe. The profile he knows how to build from himself, differentiated, and his good relationship with the governors could be the pieces of his own game for power.
There has already been talk in the analysis of the elections tha a social outbreak is possible, and part of it could come from the belligerence that the Clarín group demonstrates . Above, there has been talk of the first measures of the Macri government in 2015, and one of them was the modification of the Law on audiovisual communication services, drafted within the presidency of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and which entered into force in 2013 . This law was made in retaliation for the line undertaken by Clarín against Cristina Fernández de Kirchner during a grace period due to the situation in the country in 2003. The reason was that Cristina Fernández de Kirchner wanted to tax soybean exports in order to obtain funds to invest in a redistributive policy. The Argentine newspaper, of great influence in society (it is said that five covers against Clarín are sufficient to truncate any political career) was positioned in favor of the interests of the landowners and began a campaign against the executive who settled on a collapse of the popularity of the wife of then President Kirchner in five months, from 56% to 20%. The role that Clarín assumes in this context can serve to warm the spirits of a population already very angry and fed up with the situation. In the period of the Macri presidency the Clarín group has achieved thanks to the merger with Telecom, approved by the outgoing president on June 29, 2018, everything that Kirchnerism had forbidden him, by allowing him to offer “ quadruple play ” packages and closing the concentration phase , while the Telefe group lost the advantage it enjoyed during the Kirchner. However, Alberto Fernández has been cordial with Clarín, projecting a moderate profile.
Mercosur
The Mercosur Axis should deal with, fundamentally, the relations between Argentina and Brazil, on the one hand; and, on the other, of Mercosur with the European Union. In addition, from the pro tempore presidency of Jair Bolsonaro de Mercosur, measures have been taken that have led to the conclusion of the Mercosur-European Union trade agreement, including also the European Free Trade Association [1] . Bolsonaro has also maintained a good harmony with Mauricio Macri, since he was the first foreign leader that Bolsonaro received during a state visit in Brasilia. Bolsonaro has referred to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as Dilma Kirchner, referring to the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.
Precisely the understanding between Macri and Bolsonaro supposed to open the negotiation for the creation of a common currency for two countries with a central bank that directs the common monetary policy . But an agreement has also been concluded on the motor industry for the automobile trade between both countries, which has to be applied from June 30, 2020 until 2029, which allows progress towards free trade between the two countries, which in the In the case of Argentina, it accounts for 40% of exports of manufactures originating in the industry and affecting 160,000 jobs.
However, between January and July of this year, exports to Argentina from Brazil have been reduced by 40% compared to the same period of 2018 . This has meant a reduction in the volume of dollars from 9,900 million to 5,900. The way in which the Argentine economy evolves will determine an impact on the Brazilian one, and vice versa. It should be noted that 32% of total exports of processed plastic in Brazil is made to Argentina.
The aforementioned automobile sector accounts for most of Brazil's sales to Argentina, around 30%, and which has a tendency to register strong export declines since last year due to the situation in Argentina.
China
The agreement signed by the outgoing government with China regarding the export of soybean meal, of which Argentina is the main exporter, and that each year reports revenues of USD $ 10,000 million. The almost 27 million tons produced by the country account for 43% of the world's trade in this product, according to data provided by the Rosario Stock Exchange, a city called the “capital of soybeans”. The agreement closed in September of this year by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries with the Chinese government provides for an export in favor of China of five million tons for about USD $ 1.6 billion from 2020. In addition to oilseeds, the world demand will grow in the next 15 years driven by China and Asia in general, regarding the consumption of dairy and poultry and swine meat with increases of 40%, country in which Argentina stands out[2].
All this has taken place within the Trade War between the United States and China, as the Asian country produces 73.2 million tons of soybean flour, leading the production of this component, but you have to read the action in terms of a penetration China's largest in Latin America, specifically in Argentina, while, to begin with, this action already harms United States farmers on an electoral horizon for next year.
One of the markets that could be in the mind of China would be lithium, as the Salinas Grandes basin and the Guayatayoc Lagoon are very rich in this strategic mineral. It should not be forgotten that precisely, countries that now have a marked instability vortex are among those with the world's largest lithium reserves: Argentina, Bolivia and Chile[3]. In addition, earlier this year, the Canadian company that operated the Argentine deposits abandoned production due to the activities and complaints of the local population .
Antarctica
China and Argentina have signed a bilateral military cooperation agreement in addition to preparing the installation of an operational center at the gateway to Antarctica, Ushuaia, in the province of Tierra del Fuego. This will allow the exploration and exploitation of natural resources of Antarctica and its water s below 60 degrees south latitude. To this we must add that Antarctica is one of the largest reserves of fresh water in addition to the Andean glaciers and the Río de la Plata basin[4] . There is also a confirmed presence in the Antarctic Peninsula of cobalt, copper, chromium, iron, molybdenum, nickel, silver, lead and zinc. From this Argentine-Chinese participation, polymetallic and hydrocarbon deposits can be sought.
Inequalities and arc trafficking
In spite of the electoral promises made by Macri, the Peerza Cero[5] has brought poverty rates from 30% to 32%, according to the National Statistics Institute (Indec) . The country is paradoxically one of the largest grain exporters in the world, but children continue to die from malnutrition, a scenario that sadly in Latin America causes 50% of child deaths[6] have behind as a cause to malnutrition.
In Argentina, the gap becomes more evident between the northern and southern provinces, and there is a greater incidence of hunger in indigenous communities, in the case of the Qom and the Wichí, which inhabit the poorest provinces, the Northeast (Chaco) and Formosa) and those of the Northwest (Jujuy, Salta and Tucumán). But also the indigenous peoples Pilagá and Nivaclé de Formosa and their neighbors of the Chaco. One of the things that unite them in their claims and problems has to do with soybeans, hydrocarbons and mining . Similarly, the declaration of lime emergency approved on September 18, 2019 by Congress allows 50% increase in funds for community canteens, overwhelmed by the increase in families that cannot afford food.
Another pillar of the proposals of the outgoing executive of Macri was in the fight against drug trafficking and organized crime, an aspect denied by the government of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Argentina went from a secondary role as a drug traffic corridor to the consumer markets towards another type of reality. The possibility of accessing chemical precursors in quantity and with the quality required by a sufficiently developed local industry; legislation that was accommodating and with reduced penalties and easy release; the relatively possible legalization of assets; and, an extensive and largely neglected geography has favored these years the installation of infrastructures designed for drug processing. Among the criminal cartels that have been implemented in the country are those of Peru, Colombia and Mexico.
Regarding consumption, UNODC already reported in 2014 that Argentina was, together with Spain, the first place in the world in cocaine use, in relative terms[7] , and in absolute terms, UNODC reported that the South American country was the second in the region in terms of cocaine users with 600,000 people, after the 900,000 in Brazil with a population five times larger.
Falkland Islands / Falkland Islands
One of the key pieces of Kirchnerism has been the question of the Falkland / Falkland . This issue has been cooking since the beginning of Kirchnerism in 2003[8] , since President Néstor Kirchner thought about conjuring up the destructive effects of the 2001 crisis, transcending the economic already to influence the morale of the collective, through a proposal to “refound the homeland” of the president. To achieve this, inter alia, practices were promoted to honor the national past that continued in the two terms of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015). The Falklands account has been very prominent, within this context, where President Fernández de Kirchner delivered every April 2, date commemorating the beginning of the conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982, as Veterans Day and the Fallen in the Falklands War[9] .
This was followed by a diplomatic line to recover the archipelago that offers access to a piece of the Antarctic cake to those who own it. On June 17, 2003 Rafael Bielsa held a first meeting with representatives of the Falklands within the activity of the United Nations Decolonization Committee. The same line was inherited by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner when she entered the presidency on December 10, 2007, announcing the claim of the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands and denouncing what President Fernández de Kirchner defined as “British neo-colonialism,” urging the United Kingdom to comply with all United Nations mandates. The recognition by the European Union of the existence of a dispute over the sovereignty of the islands by the United Kingdom and Argentina was requested .
Since 2012 the military presence in the United Kingdom has been reinforced in the Falklands, being this kind of militarization denounced by the Fernández de Kirchner government to the United Nations. This series of actions led the United Kingdom to organize a type of referendum on the maintenance of British sovereignty over the Falklands. To all this, Argentina pointed out that the conditions for exercising said referendum were not given since, among other things, the population was mostly settled in the archipelago in 1833, with the British occupation, and that it maintains a status of non-autonomous territory administered by the United Kingdom. So, according to Argentina, Resolution 2065 (XX) urges the parties, that is, Argentina and the United Kingdom, to enter into negotiations and thus work should be done between the two countries. Pressure was also exerted on forums such as Mercosur, Unasur, CELAC, the G7 plus Russia and China, Latin American countries in general, and even African countries have recognized Argentine sovereignty over the interests of the United Kingdom.
With the arrival of Macri, tensions with the United Kingdom regarding the sovereignty of the islands were reduced , focusing on Argentina's position to establish a dialogue with the United Kingdom regarding the archipelago. But such a position has always been totally rejected by the British government, de facto abandoning itself in the speech and in the foreign action of the government during the Macri executive.
The situation could change with the return of Kirchnerism, although we will see at what point the influence and support provided by Fernández de Kirchner to “warm up” the conflict with the United Kingdom, and how China's interests can change the axis of the faithful of the balance in foreign policy, or give a blow to the situation that may explode in the street in the form of a social outbreak, not to mention the Commercial and Technological War between China and the United States.
[1] Which includes Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
[2] https://www.agro.uba.ar/delsuralmundoen2030/?page_id=1079
[3] The Lithium Triangle has 9 million Metric Tons in Argentina and Bolivia, and 7.5 Million Metric Tons in Chile.
[4] It has an area of about 3,100,000 square kilometers and groups the main urban and industrial centers of Argentina, in addition to the Paraguay, Paraná and Uruguay rivers.
[5] The program to achieve Zero Poverty of Macri included the universalization of citizen income and the extension of the Universal Allocation for Son, of all social inclusion policies carried out in the executive of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, was without place Undoubtedly, the most prominent. To this was added an Operational Plan for the reduction of infant mortality
[6] That is, babies below one year of age .
[7] 2.6% of the population between the ages of 15 and 64 had used that drug in the last year at the time of the study.
[8] Already in the inauguration speech on May 25, 2003, President Néstor Kirchner said: “We come from the south of the Homeland, from the land of the Malvinera culture and from the continental ice and we will sustainably sustain our claim of sovereignty over the Falkland Islands "
[9] And that has manifested itself in mass culture with films such as Illuminated by Fire (2005) or Crazy of the Flag (2005) or A Chinese Tale (2011); documentaries such as Disobedience due (2008), Footprints in the wind (2008), Malvinas, 25 years of silence (2008), Not so ours (2005).
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