Electoral distortion

According to the Royal Academy, a farce can be any situation or action that is presented as serious but is, in reality, a mockery or a deception. In this sense, it is used to describe something that has become ridiculous or false.

This analysis delves into the current complex Argentine electoral landscape, with rising absenteeism throughout the country and the proscription of the main opposition figure, focusing specifically on the province of Buenos Aires, a district of crucial strategic importance. In this context, the current ruling bloc could not allow Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (hereafter CFK) to be a candidate, and she would very likely preserve the province of Buenos Aires electorally for Peronism. The "judicial party," appealing to a ruling that, according to most of the most prestigious constitutionalists, had little legal basis, proscribed the country's main opposition leader. Since then, we have experienced an electoral and democratic distortion.

This distortion is intrinsically linked to the consolidation of a "structural qualified vote," which increasingly appears to serve the interests of the current ruling bloc, aligned with a far-right neoliberal political and economic agenda.

From this point on, a mere criticism of the election results that fails to incorporate CFK's proscription into the analysis and fails to address the profound questioning of the integrity and authenticity of the representativeness of the democratic process itself is, in our view, a serious historical error.

The central objective of this booklet is to explain: 1) the central importance of the September (and October) elections in the province of Buenos Aires for the Peronist structure at the national level; 2) in conjunction with the previous point, to unravel the impact of the court's decision to ban CFK and leave the opposition without its main figure; and 3) to highlight how this ban is combined with a crisis of representation (expressed in an ever-increasing voter absenteeism rate) that could become lethal for Argentine democracy.

The electoral landscape: the importance of the "third section." CFK's strategic decision to participate in the provincial elections in the third section of Buenos Aires (see map) underscored the importance of this region, which is home to approximately 6.5 million inhabitants, representing more than a third of the 17.5 million inhabitants of the province of Buenos Aires. The fight for this section of the Greater Buenos Aires thus became a battle for political power in the most populous province in the country.

In electoral terms, the "third" district has 4,846,000 eligible voters at 13,546 polling stations. Furthermore, this section contributes 50% of the total votes to the Buenos Aires Peronist party. The size of this electoral base is central to the sustainability of any political project that aims to influence national political dynamics. This figure is also crucial, as it positions the region not only as a vast district but also as an essential pillar for the stability and legitimacy of the provincial government. Any significant change in its electoral dynamics could, therefore, impact the political structure at the provincial level and, by extension, at the national level.

With its conglomerates in La Matanza and Lomas de Zamora, combined with a powerful southern region stretching from Avellaneda to Florencio Varela, this electoral district with a historical Peronist identity emerges as a transcendental electoral geographic space for any provincial election centered on the struggle for political hegemony.

The participation denied to Cristina Kirchner today was conceived by the Peronist leader as a challenge of "such enormous and untransferable" proportions, with the explicit objective of "re-representing" her electoral base. That "own" electorate, which felt discouraged after the distributive debacle of the Frente de Todos government, which caused 4.1 million voters who had opted for the FdT as an electoral tool to punish Macri's administration in the 2019 presidential election to miss the 2021 midterm vote, found in CFK a real alternative to the desperate economic and social situation.

This political-electoral context, then, characterized by the strong commitment of the economic power bloc to consolidating the far-right's political project in the country, required a confrontation with an opposition of a political-electoral magnitude similar to the challenges this dispute entailed (and entails) in regional and national terms. The magnitude of the fight and the "titles" at stake in the Buenos Aires elections determined the need for a figure of significant political stature and unifier of the Peronist opposition to mobilize a disillusioned electorate.

In this context, our central thesis is that with CFK's proscription, the contemporary Argentine electoral representation system has degenerated into an "electoral distortion," which could give rise, in the short term, to a "democratic farce."

Bans. Bans are common in Latin America, and in recent years have been suffered by Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva (until his release from prison), Rafael Correa, and Evo Morales, among others. This strategy has been the way the economic and political right in the region has found to displace candidates who appear difficult to defeat in the electoral process. Although to a lesser extent, Argentina has also had its own names, and the emblematic figure of Juan Domingo Perón emerges when recalling historical political bans. For 18 years, the justice system (in its various forms) intervened to prevent the Peronist leader from running in competitive elections.

However, despite the fact that many former presidents were investigated, charged, and/or convicted, they were never barred from participating in the elections, as the total electoral ban imposed by the Supreme Court, the final court of appeal in the Argentine courts, did not count toward their sanctions.

The criminal charges against Perón and his third wife, Isabel Martínez, were issued by the dictatorships that succeeded the governments they led and omitted a total ban. In Menem's case, there was a lifetime ban, which was later rectified by higher courts.

Voter absenteeism: a new phenomenon with a class bias. The six elections held this year, representing 25% of the national voter registry, have revealed a novel electoral phenomenon due to its spontaneity, scope, and intensity: widespread absenteeism.

This trend suggests a deep and widespread disengagement from the voting process nationwide, one that grows as the socioeconomic status of the population declines. This is distinct from the previous patterns of disengagement that have unfolded throughout our electoral history, and which today is expressed through rising absenteeism.

The prequel to absenteeism as a form of citizen rejection must be traced back to the 2021 legislative elections, where 4.1 million FpV voters in 2019 were absent from the legislative elections.

Given this context of disconnection, the voter turnout projection for 2025 in the third electoral district of the PBA (Basque Country) appears critical, notably low, and estimated, based on the verified national average, at no more than 55% of the registered voter registry. This alarming projection implies that almost half of eligible voters would abstain, indicating a profound crisis in voter turnout, which would continue what was observed in the district elections already held.

At this point, the immediate historical parallel lies in the 2001 legislative elections. A neoliberal socioeconomic context, with declining consumption, rising poverty and destitution, signs of deflation, rising unemployment, a middle class impoverished to miserable levels, undisguised anger with the political system in general, and significant dissatisfaction with the government's progress, all link the experience to the Milei administration.

Within this framework, a crucial qualitative and quantitative analytical component is the direct comparison between the projected levels of absenteeism for 2025 and the "rejection vote," combined with the blank and spoiled votes observed during the midterm elections of October 2001, prior to the first crisis of the exit from neoliberalism in democracy.

We insist: this historical parallel is extremely significant, given that the October 2001 elections took place just two months before the socioeconomic and institutional megacrisis of December of that year in Argentina. We are not suggesting that history will repeat itself in the same way or in similar forms, but the context preceding the crisis is extremely similar in many respects.

If we review the election results in the province of Buenos Aires and in the strategic third section, we observe that, at the provincial level, in October 2001 the Justicialist Party obtained 805,107 votes, representing 41.42% of the total. However, the second place went to spoiled votes, 12.21%, surpassing both the blank votes (9.63%) and the votes obtained by the Alliance (11.51%). It should be noted that, at the national level, the proportions remained slightly different.

This "angry vote" from 2001 is a guide to imagining the extent of the crisis of representation currently unfolding in the country in 2025. This recurrence of patterns of electoral discontent suggests that the current high absenteeism is not simply a manifestation of apathy, but a deeper form of active or passive community rejection.

Empirical evidence reveals that spoiled votes were the second most common type of vote in the 2001 legislative elections. Currently, the punishment for the political system doesn't seem to be following the same political channels as 24 years ago, but it does indicate a strong objection to the available political options, suggesting a similar, though perhaps less explicit, sentiment. Currently, citizens don't even go to vote; the active role of going to school to voice their "anger" has now become passive, as people don't even bother to go to the polling stations.

Furthermore, in the current context, there is a distinction worth highlighting, as it distinguishes the 2001 experience from what has been unfolding in provincial elections to date: class bias.

The analysis shows that the absenteeism observed in 2025 is not distributed evenly across the electorate. On the contrary, it is particularly intense at the base of the social stratification pyramid. The data are revealing that the most vulnerable social sectors are those that most strongly express this electoral tactic. If a substantial portion of the electorate, particularly the most vulnerable, is passively rejecting the system through nonparticipation, this points to a fundamental crisis of legitimacy for the entire democratic framework. We emphasize: this could be a precursor to broader social instability, similar to the conditions that preceded the 2001 crisis, but manifested through electoral disengagement rather than open protests such as voting blank or spoiling votes via envelopes containing slices of salami and the insertion of cartoon figures inside, as was the case almost a quarter of a century ago.

This indicates a clear socioeconomic bias in nonparticipation. There is a direct relationship: the greater the social vulnerability, the greater the electoral absenteeism. This heterogeneity points to the most socioeconomically disadvantaged segments of the population as those most disconnected, or those who passively reject the electoral process.

This unequal distribution of absenteeism stands out as particularly detrimental, in this case under analysis, to Peronism in Buenos Aires Province, due to the Peronist movement's historical and traditional support base, which, although diminishing, remains sustained among vulnerable social sectors. This circumstance underscores that disengagement is not random, but deeply rooted in the material conditions of existence.

This implies that those most affected by economic hardship, social inequality, and lack of opportunities are those who feel least represented or empowered by the electoral process. Their nonparticipation is a direct consequence of their deteriorating socioeconomic situation, indicating a perceived disconnect between democratic participation, particularly electoral participation, and any tangible improvement in everyday life.

If the most vulnerable segments of society are systematically excluded (or self-excluded due to disillusionment) from the voting process, the democratic system loses its representative character. This shows that the political agenda and the outcomes of economic policies are increasingly likely to be shaped by the concerns and interests of the highest socioeconomic strata, further marginalizing the needs of the most vulnerable.

This set of analyzed elements (proscription, absenteeism, class bias) creates a dangerous vicious circle, exacerbating existing inequalities and potentially leading to a loop of disengagement and lack of representation, undermining the very foundations of a democratic society.

The second part of this article will be published tomorrow.