2023 marks the 40th anniversary of the longest period of institutional stability with popular vote in the 213 years since the independence process of the Argentine Republic began.
Nothing is defined two months before the PASO and four before the presidential election. But in the field of conjecture, it can hardly be said that this election will be the end of Peronism.
Some believe that if in a particular political situation, in which the Argentine electorate was divided into three alternatives, Peronism could be in third place and excluded from the second round, which would mark a historical milestone regarding its decline. But at the same time, the Argentine electoral system (established in the constitution) determines that if the first force reaches 40% of the votes and 10 or more points of advantage over the second, it already wins in the first round. This means that the triumph of Peronism cannot be ruled out, although today it seems improbable.
The denominations of Peronism through its 78 years have been changing, from the initial Labor Party to today’s Frente de Todos, with periods in which it also formally assumed the name of Peronism. The inevitable ideological contradictions in almost eight decades of existence have been attenuated by a political culture that finds points of contact, despite their differences, between Perón, Menem and Kirchner.
Proposing that this is the end of the cycle of Kirchnerism may be risky, given the experiences of the past. The Peronism-Kirchnerism identity has contradictions and complexities, but it continues to function, as evidenced by the act of May 25 that commemorated the twenty years since Néstor Kirchner came to power.
Perhaps the intonation of the “Peronist march” is a symbol of this culture that is still in force, which from outside Peronism is identified simply as an expression of populism.
The 2023 presidential election will be an important milestone for Peronism as a political phenomenon, but it will surely not be terminal or definitive.
With 22 years to go before Peronism turns a century, trying to get to know it and understand it is essential to understand Argentine politics.
*Rosendo Fraga is director of the Union Study Center for the New Majority.
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