ARGENTINA: President Is Hands-Down Favourite

• by Marcela Valente (buenos aires)
• Wednesday, January 12, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Fernández recently stated that 'personally, 2010 has been the worst year of my life.' But on the political front, the sudden death of her husband Néstor Kirchner, her predecessor as president from 2003 to 2007, has apparently given her a boost.

Kirchner was the leader of the centre-left wing of the Justicialista (Peronist) Party, the Frente para la Victoria, which he and his wife founded.

'Her image had been improving throughout 2010, but when Kirchner died (on Oct. 27), there was a major outpouring of sympathy,' Mabel Fornoni, with the Management and Fit polling company, told IPS. 'And now that things are getting back to normal, the overall balance is positive.'

Management and Fit's latest poll was led by Fernández, with 47.3 percent of respondents giving her a rating of good or very good. She was followed by the governor of the eastern province of Buenos Aires, Daniel Scioli, who belongs to the same faction of the governing party.

Last year, Scioli had not ruled out running for president in the Oct. 23 elections, even if it meant competing with Fernández or with Kirchner himself, who was also seen as a likely candidate.

But since Kirchner died of a heart attack, Scioli, his former vice president who now governs the most populous province in the country, has adopted a lower profile and said he will accept whatever post Fernández needs him in.

Approval of the government in general jumped after the president was widowed, before flattening out. But during her mourning process, she has become more popular than she ever was before she lost her husband and political partner.

Shortly before Kirchner's death, the president's approval ratings stood at 34 percent, while 60.3 percent of those polled by Management and Fit disapproved of her. A month later, those percentages stood at 57.4 and 31.1 percent, respectively.

Currently, 49.1 percent approve of the government, and 42.7 percent disapprove. In other words, Fernández has gained support despite conflicts that broke out in December, including labour protests and occupations of land by squatters, as well as fuel shortages and blackouts during a heat wave.

The president has not yet indicated whether she will run for reelection, although her associates and supporters insist that she is the party's best candidate. The Equis polling company also shows her leading the polls with 44 percent voting intention.

'Fernández is absolutely in the lead right now, even in the provinces hit hardest by the '125' crisis,' said Equis director Artemio López, referring to the conflict triggered in 2008 by the protests of large agricultural producers against the rise in taxes on farm exports, which the government increased by means of 'decree 125'.

Fornoni said it is 'quite unlikely' that any political leader with that level of support would decline to run. She added that if the elections were held today, Fernández 'would win without a doubt, because the opposition is fractured.'

Pensioner Sara Benítez told IPS that 'This is the best government that we have had in a long time,' even though, she said, she has personally been hurt by this administration and is highly critical of the way it has handled some problems.

Benítez said that although she always paid into social security while she was working, she draws the minimum pension -- the same amount currently paid out to two million retirees who never made payments.

She was referring to the creation of a minimum pension for self-employed workers, including homemakers, who never contributed to the social security system or who owed years of contributions. On reaching retirement age, they now have a pension, from which small monthly deductions are made to pay off contributions owed.

The Fernández administration has a high level of support among this elderly population group that now have an income they never dreamed of receiving, as well as among lower-income groups. But the middle and upper classes remain critical of the government.

Nevertheless, the president's overall approval ratings are strong. Observers point to a few key factors for this.

On one hand, economic growth has been high, and the government has run a budget surplus since 2007.

And although inflation is a pending challenge, poverty and unemployment have declined in the last few years, and the president created a monthly family allowance of nearly 50 dollars per child for parents who are unemployed or work in the informal economy in Argentina.

Furthermore, the opposition has not managed to lay out a coherent alternative policy programme, or present strong leaders.

The most popular opposition leader is legislator Ricardo Alfonsín, whose image also benefited from the death of a family member. In his case it was his father Raúl, the leader of the centrist Radical Civic Union, who governed for six years after Argentina's return to democracy following the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Alfonsín, who has launched his presidential campaign, was virtually unknown until his father died in 2009.

His vindication of his father's legacy gave him a huge popularity boost, and he now has approval ratings of 44.4 percent, according to Management and Fit.

But Fornoni said Alfonsín's big advantage, ironically, is that he has no experience in government. Scioli, who has governed, has a similar level of popularity: 45 percent.

'One of the factors that affected the government of Cristina (Fernández) and that people punished her for was that she allowed Kirchner to constantly meddle in decision-making,' Fornoni said.

The pollster added that many now wonder how the president will govern and wage a successful campaign without Kirchner, even though she won the last two elections in which she ran, and her husband actually lost.

She pointed out that Kirchner reached the government in 2003 despite coming in second in the first round with a mere 22 percent of the vote. His rival, former president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), had pulled out of the runoff after taking 24 percent, because the polls showed that a large proportion of the population held a negative opinion of him.

And in the June 2009 legislative midterm elections, Kirchner ran as candidate for the lower house of Congress in the province of Buenos Aires, but came in second then too, behind millionaire businessman Francisco de Narváez, a congressman from the right-wing faction of the Peronist Party.

His wife, by contrast, who held various legislative posts since 1995, won the 2005 elections for a Senate seat representing the province of Buenos Aires by a wide margin. And in the 2007 presidential elections she took more than 45 percent of the vote, avoiding the need for a runoff.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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