Latinnews Archive
Latin American Weekly Report - 1 June 1995
Menem exceeds all expectations; But Frepaso secures control of the federal capital,
The electoral triumph of Carlos Menem on 14 May was much more comfortable than any polls or predictions had foreseen: with almost 50% of the votes he was well above the 45% needed for outright victory, and a full 20 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival, Jos Octavio Bordon.
Right about Radicals. The polls did get the vote for the Radical candidate, Horacio Massaccesi, almost exactly right: 17.1%. But they were wrong about the degree of electoral support for Bordon's coalition, Frepaso, which actually won more votes in the congressional elections than Borden did, and beat Menem's Partido Justicialista (PJ) in the percentage of votes cast, if not the number of seats (see table).
THE PRESIDENTIAL CONTEST
| votes (m) | % | |
| Carlos Menem-Carlos Ruckauf (PJ) | 8.3 | 49.8 |
| Jose Octavio Bordon-Carlos Alvarez (Frepaso) | 4.9 | 29.2 |
| Horacio Massaccesi-Antonio Hernndez (UCR) | 2.9 | 17.1 |
| AIdo Rico-J0rge Fernndez Pezzano (Modin) | 0.3 | 1.8 |
HOW THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES WILL LOOK
| Party | Seats(old) | Seats(new) | Change | % of vote |
| Padido Justicialista | 125 | 137 | +12 | 23 |
| Union Civica Radical | 83 | 69 | -14 | 20.3 |
| Frente Pais Solidario | 13 | 26 | +13 | 34.9 |
| Others | 36 | 25 | -11 | 21.8 |
THE PICTURE IN BUENOS AIRES
% of votes
| Party | Presidential contest | Congress | Seats |
| Frepaso | 44.4 | 34.7 | 5 |
| PJ | 41.3 | 23.0 | 3 |
| UCR | 10.6 | 20.3 | 3 |
VOTING IN THE SELECTED PROVINCES
Number of congressional seats
| Province | PJ | UCR | Prepaso | Others |
| Buenos Aires | 23 | 6 | 6 | |
| Corrientes | 2 | 2 | ||
| Entre Rios | 2 | 2 | ||
| La Pampa | 2 | |||
| Mendoza | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Neuquen | 1 | 1 | ||
| Rio Negro | 1 | 1 | ||
| Salta | 2 | 2 | ||
| San Juan | 2 | 1 | ||
| Santa Fe | 4 | 2 | 3 | 1 |
| Stgo dl Estero | 1 | 3 | ||
| Tucumn | 1 | 1 | 3 | |
| Tierra del FueVo | 2 | 1 |
THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNORSHIPS
| Province | Candidate | Party |
| Santiago del Estero | Carlos Jurez | PJ |
| Catamarca | Arnoldo Castillo | UCR |
| La Rioja | Angel Maza | PJ |
| San Juan J | Jorge Escobar | PJ |
| Cordoba | Ramon Mestre | UCR |
| San Luis | Adolfo Rodriguez | Saa PJ |
| Mendoza | Aduro Lafalla | PJ |
| La Pampa | Ruben Marin | PJ |
| Rio Negro | Pablo Verani | UCR |
| Chubut | Carlos Maestro | UCR |
| Santa Cruz | Nestor Kirchner | PJ |
| Buenos Aires | Eduardo Duhalde | PJ |
| Entre Rios | Jorge Busti | PJ |
| Misiones | Ramon Puerta | PJ |
Jujuy, Salta, Tucuman, Formosa, Chaco, Sanea Fe and Neuquen will vote for governors later this year. There will be no election in Corrientes in 1995.
The PJ's 23% of the vote was proof that the electorate were twice as keen on Menem as on his party. Even so, the PJ was able to secure an extra 12 seats and thereby a majority in congress for the first time.
The only one of the 24 electoral districts where Bordon beat Menem in a straight fight was in the federal capital: the senator from Mendoza won 44.2% of the votes in Buenos Aires against 41.52% for the President. The latter, even so, did better in the capital than in 1989, when he secured 36.7% of the votes.
Bordon won 17 of the capital's 28 districts to Menem's 11. The UCR, traditionally strong in the capital, did not win a single one and obtained only 10.67% of the votes.
Frepaso wins in capital. Frepaso, an eleventh-hour alliance of assorted dissidents, won five seats in the federal capital with 34.73% of the votes, against three each for the PJ (23%) and UCR. Frepaso's grip on Buenos Aires is now such that it should win control of the city government in local elections later this year.
This will be the first time the intendente of Buenos Aires is elected directly rather than being appointed t by the President. The most likely Frepaso candidates for mayor are former prosecutor Anibal Ibarra (backed by Chacho Alvarez) and socialist Norberto Laporta, who may confront each other in an internal primary.
That Menem won the support of the richest and poorest, at least in the capital (see front page of this issue) is proved by the incumbent's resounding victories in both the working-class Villa Lugano (51.2%) district and in the socially exclusive Recoleta (57.4%). In the latter Menem was also backed by the right-wing Union de Centro Democratico.
Many middle-class voters must, of course, have voted for the President, too, though they seem to have been shy about telling pollsters of their intentions: a phenomenon dubbed the voto vergonzante by psephologists.
Hard-headed voters. This hardheaded attitude spread to other sectors, to judge by some of the comments recorded by the press and news agencies. 'I voted for Menem but I'm not in any mood for celebrations. Let them get on with it and see if they can get somewhere,' a Buenos Aires shoe-shine boy told IPS.
Dante Caputo, the former Radical foreign minister who threw in his lot with Bordon, put it another way: 'We assured people that we would maintain stability but we did not say how we would do it, and that's where we fell down.'
In the provinces, Borden simply did not reach the remoter parts of the country, where Menem scored some surprisingly comfortable victories. In Tierra del Fuego, for example, where the closure of an electronics factory caused serious rioting in March, in which one demonstrator was shot dead by police, Menem won 61% of the votes.
The President's victory in Santiago del Estero, another poverty-stricken province torn by anti-government violence in recent times, Menem was supported by 65% of voters.
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