The Buenos Aires elections left a result that few were encouraged to anticipate: a overwhelming victory of Peronism and a significant decline of freedom advances in the main district of the country. The striking thing is that one of the great winners did not appear on any ballot or head partisan act: Jorge Rial, whose influence through the dissemination and amplification of the audios of Diego Spagnuolo was decisive to configure the social climate of the last days of the campaign.
The so -called “Coimagate” was not a minor anecdote in a scenario marked by citizen apathy after the previous provincial elections. The initial revelations of the journalist Mauro Federico on alleged requests for coimas in the National Disability Agency found an unexpected megaphone in Rial, which from their social networks and programs turned the filtration into the central theme of the public conversation. The “Coimagate” not only exposed Karina Milei and her political assembly, but also installed the idea of a ruling traversed by corruption in just a year and a half of management.
That media coup died deep into a social humor already deteriorated by the economy. The initial enthusiasm with the arrival of Javier Milei to power, accompanied by a promising start in 2025 (with some exchange calm), faded quickly. Inflation was loved, consumption retracted and the pocket marked the agenda. The result: the previous apathy mutated in anger and that anger became electoral participation.
Within that framework, Peronism knew how to capitalize on a part of the anger. In the third section, Historical Bastion of the PJ, the victory was overwhelming: almost 18 points ahead. In the first section, more disputed, it was also imposed by around 8 points, according to data circulating in the Somos Buenos Aires bunker. The difference is relevant because it indicates that a part of the vote that Milei had retained in the ballot moved towards Peronism, driven by the rejection of Karina Milei and the weakness of the libertarian assembly in the districts of the Conurbano.
The words of the leaders reflected it prudence. “It is not easy to advance info of how the first comes out. There are no witness tables or urn mouths, only isolated and zero data. The climate is positive, we started very back (8 to 10 points) and we were going back. They tell us that the comeback did not cut, but we do not know for sure how far it came. We will have to wait Gabriel Katopodis, candidate for senator in the first section and Minister of Axel Kicillof.
The surprise was capitalized because the ruling party looked winner by beating. From the Casa Rosada the corrosive effect of the audios and a scandal that crossed all social layers was underestimated. The perception of impunity and centrality of Karina Milei as the main political operator of the president worked as a discontent catalyst. The rejection of his driving style inclined the balance.
The election also exposed the structural weaknesses of freedom advances in Buenos Aires territory. The nomination of an unknown candidate as Maximiliano Bondarenko in the third section, without territorial structure or social anchor, contrasted with the PJ machinery and with the citizen anger already fogoneted by the “audiogate”. The formula was lethal: a confident ruling, a scandal that occupied the public agenda and an opposition that managed to mobilize its base with the flag of indignation.
The remarkable thing is that the determining factor was not a traditional political discourse, but a process of media erosion that found its main protagonist in Rial. In times of hyperconnection and distrust of institutions, a television driver turned into a leak replicator achieved more impact than Máximo Kirchner’s campaign acts, folded in the San José 1111 bunker. Rial did not appear in the list of candidates, but the great invisible winner was undoubted: he leaned the court in favor of the PJ and left the Mileism in his district. difficult.
The message of the polls is clear: the Buenos Aires society did not stay at home, went to vote angry. And he did it punishing a government that believed that wear was not yet reached. Rial, the audios and the economy were the cocktail that transformed the apathy into electoral punishment. Peronism celebrated, but who better understood people’s pulse was an outsider of the electoral board.
