La Libertad Avanza presented a new campaign spot amid the confusion generated by the scandalous departure of José Luis Espert of electoral competition. With Diego Santilli and Karen Reichardt as protagonists, the video seeks to guide Buenos Aires voters on how to correctly identify and mark the ruling party’s ballot in the October 26 elections. The piece, disseminated on networks and digital media, attempts to reinforce the presence of the party in the most populated province of the country, after the change of figures on the list.
In the audiovisual message, both Santilli and Reichardt explain that La Libertad Avanza will be found in the first column of the single ballot, identified by the color violet and the eagle symbol. “You will find a photo where Karen and another person who lowered their candidacy are,” says the former Macrista leader, avoiding naming the liberal deputy. The uncomfortable situation that Santilli must avoid in the propaganda, trying to simulate ignoring Espert, who lowered his application after learning of his commercial link with the drug trafficker. Fred Machadoit is so evident that social networks exploded with memes and edits.
As if that were not enough, the slogan chosen in the campaign is “to vote for the red one, mark the bald one”, making a “humorous” play with his red hair and the baldness of Espert, who had originally led the candidacy. Furthermore, in a pedagogical way, Santilli explains how to check the corresponding box. The message closes with the phrase “Freedom Moves Forward or Argentina Moves Back,” in clear allusion to the dilemma posed by the ruling party between continuing the course of the Milei government or returning to the past.
The dissemination of the spot coincided with the judicial officialization of the new Buenos Aires list of La Libertad Avanza, headed by Santilli. The National Electoral Chamber had shortly before rejected a request from the party to reprint the ballots and replace Espert’s image with that of the new candidate, considering that the request was “extemporaneous, materially impossible and legally inadmissible.”
The ruling, signed by the judges Ramos Padilla, Jorge Di Lorenzo and Hilda Koganwarned that allowing reprinting “would open the possibility of successive claims and generate uncertainty about acts already concluded, affecting public confidence in the development of the electoral process.” For this reason, the court considered it essential to preserve the stability of the calendar and avoid any modification that would alter the normal development of the October 26 elections.
