The Supreme Court issued a ruling declaring indefinite reelection in Formosa unconstitutional. At first glance it would seem that this puts an end to the 30 consecutive years of Gildo Insfrán’s government. But the content of the ruling is much less forceful. What the judges of the Court point out is that, within the framework of the federal regime, the terms of the governor have to be defined by the Constitution of Formosa, without contradicting the National Constitution.
It may happen that a reform of the provincial Constitution is implemented that adopts the national rule by which there can be indefinite but not consecutive reelection. Thus, the governor of that province or of any other province can join the government with the candidacy of a family member or friend. To the extent that citizens vote for them, the re-election of the ruling group will continue to be perpetual. There are antecedents with dynamics of these characteristics.
The question to ask then is where the conditions originate for the ruler to remain in power forever. To do this, it is very suggestive to analyze how it is distributed and how it is used. tax sharing. According to the Ministry of Economy for the year 2024 It is observed that:
-Among all the provinces they were distributed 900 dollars per inhabitant per year.
-Formosa received $2,350 per inhabitant.
-Among all the provinces, the co-participation represents the 45% of total provincial income, while in Formosa it represents the 82% of total income.
These data show that Formosa receives 2.6 times more co-participation than the average of the provinces. It is clear that the rest of the country is in solidarity with the people of Formosa. The problem is that this solidarity is channeled through a very perverse mechanism: co-participation that redistributes resources without conditions. With this scheme, rulers are induced to use public resources to remain in power.
The effort made by the rest of the country to provide resources to Formosa is used by its government to finance perverse clientelistic practices.. According to INDEC, in Formosa 30% of the employed are public employees and another 55% are informal workers who indirectly depend on the provincial government. Only 15% are employees registered in private companies, many of which also depend on the government because they are suppliers to the provincial State or their shareholders are family and friends of the ruler. On the other hand, co-participation allows people from Formosa to avoid charging taxes. More than 80% of the provincial budget is financed with co-participation and the rest is generated mainly with Gross Income collected from companies located outside the province.
What the Formosa government does not do with co-participation is develop the province. According to the 2022 Census, 38% of homes have dirt floors, half do not have internet or a computer and, according to the APRENDER tests, of the children who finish primary school, 35% do not know how to read or write and 43% do not know how to read or write. He knows math operations for his age. With these social conditions, poverty and ignorance are reproduced, maintaining the dependence and submission that are the basis for the ruling clan to remain in power forever. Co-participation leads to the paradox that the solidarity of the rest of the provinces with Formosa serves to impoverish the people of Formosa..
The origin of Formosa’s poverty is not the indefinite re-election but the co-participation that gives the governors resources – provided by the rest of the country – to keep the population of the province subdued. This is not resolved by limiting the re-election of governors but by returning tax autonomy to the provinces.as proposed by President Milei. The general rule has to be that each province is self-financing. For the most lagging provinces, such as Formosa, provide for a temporary Convergence Fund with conditional transfers that they are not used for clientelism – as is the case with co-participation – but for the economic and social development of the province.
*Jorge Colina is an economist and president of IDESA.
by Jorge Colina
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