On Sunday 27 October Argentina returns to the polls after the four-year term at the Casa Rosada of Mauricio Macri, whose presidency – which was to be the turning point after years of crisis and Kirchnerism – it was nothing short of a flop. The free-market exponent bequeaths a country that has indeed opened up to international capital, without however affecting the economic growth and standard of living of Argentines.
Rather, this year the GDP will decrease according to estimates of 3%, inflation (the abatement of which was one of Macri's electoral horses) has returned to alarming levels, well over 50%, and people living below the poverty line have reached an all-time high of 35% of the population.
This is why it is practically certain (polls arrive at calculating a gap of 20 percentage points) that the winner will be the Fernandez-Fernandez ticket: that is Alberto Fernandez, ex-dolphin of Cristina Kirchner, as president, and the ex-president, still very popular in Argentina (his autobiography is the best-selling book of the year) as his deputy.
Once the elections are archived, the problem will be to understand under what conditions this new Peronist course will begin, with the head no longer being the unscrupulous wife of former president Nestor Kirchner but the more moderate – and precisely for this reason not unwelcome to international markets – Alberto Fernandez. Above all, there is a need to renegotiate the monstrous 56 billion loan obtained from the IMF and which Buenos Aires has squandered, arriving in recent months one step away from a new default, after the dramatic corralito of the early 2000s.
Of primary importance will first be to understand the extent of the victory of Front of All: if Alberto Fernández were to reach 45% of the preferences – or even 40% by distancing the second candidate by at least 10 points, a hypothesis that seems probable – he could be elected in the first round without needing to go to the ballot. The strength of the majority on which the new president will be able to count (and which will translate into contractual strength with the IMF) will naturally also depend on the results of the votes in the Argentine provinces.
Meanwhile, the new president in pectore has ensured that its government formula will be pluralistic, founded on collaboration between the various components of the majority and of the movement and less devoted to converging on the figure of a charismatic leader, with clear reference to the past of Kirchnerism embodied by its number two.
As far as Macri is concerned, the debacle arriving at the polls could instead translate not only into a losing battle but at the end of his political experience, which the former governor of Buenos Aires and patron of Boca Juniors, the most popular soccer club in Argentina, had started amidst great enthusiasm and acclaim.
Macri bequeaths an agreement with the IMF for a loan of 56 billion dollars, about 78% of which has already been granted. This month the Washington Fund should have disbursed another 5,4 billion in favor of the South American country, thus completing the payment of 88% of the total loan granted in Buenos Aires in three years, but the representatives of the international body they ruled out any further donations before the new government takes office.
Naturally, the subsequent payments will be granted if the technical staff of the IMF were to have guarantees on the conditions of the agreements already made with the Macri government. The loan granted according to the three-year plan of Stand by makes Argentina to date the main debtor of the international body.
How will the new government move? How will it cope with loan repayments and interest rates without giving in to the feared but perhaps necessary austerity policies and higher taxes? It is evident that Fernandez can never go back, because almost all of the money has already been collected and guarantees will necessarily have to be given to ensure subsequent payments.
The obligatory path, as many had foreseen, is therefore that of a debt restructuring and a review of maturities: the agreements with the IMF currently provide for a devolution of the loan which should start in 2021 and end in 2024. According to the agreements and the payment plan established Argentina is expected to face the toughest payment tranches in 2022, when it will have to repay the IMF 18.200 million dollars and in 2023 with 22.600 million.
However, Buenos Aires is not the only hot situation within the South American continent, set on fire in recent weeks by several hotbeds of tension. First there was the uprising in Ecuador, then the one that exploded suddenly in Chile, whose economy apparently continues to be booming but which is now on the verge of civil war due to the rising cost of living and the violent repression of the army, which is recalling the nightmare of Pinochet's ferocious dictatorship.
In Peru several cases of corruption have led to the dissolution of the Chambers and soon we will return to the vote, while speaking of elections, on the same day we vote in Argentina neighboring and more peaceful Uruguay also goes to the polls, a happy island where the candidate of former president Pepe Mujica's party, in government since 2005, should comfortably win.
In Bolivia instead we voted for the first round a week ago and the victory of Evo Morales (who is running for a fourth consecutive term, defying the constitutional rules) is questioned by the opposition and by a large part of the population, who are taking to the streets accusing the Andean leader of fraud.
