The defeat of the government in the STEP raises questions about the governability of the country, taking into account that there are more than two years to go for the presidential replacement. In the case of repeating the result in the legislative elections of next November, we will be faced with an unprecedented panorama: a President who lost credibility, with his delegated power source deteriorated by the fall of Cristina Kirchner in the province of Buenos Aires, and his party, Peronism, without leadership and in territorial decline. On the face of it, the crisis, which will require from a weakened and exhausted government a political and economic plan to reach December 2023. The immensity of this challenge forces us to think of formulas that facilitate governance in a context of strong competition between the government and the opposition. , and therefore lack of incentives and resources to reach agreements. We present below a proposal .
First we have to focus on the two competing coalitions, because they better explain the decisions of the government and the opposition and the possibility of reaching agreements.
Regarding the opposition , the novelty is that it has remained united and competitive since its departure from government in 2019 , despite the tensions that caused the definition of the candidacies and the differences between the main leaders within the major parties that compose it, the PRO and the UCR . The incentive not to break originates from the conviction that in 2023 it will be able to evict a Kirchnerism from power, hacked by the poor management results . The recent electoral defeat of the ruling party accentuated this motivation.
On the contrary, the dynamics of the ruling party is limited by the confrontation and the lack of definitions of the government due to the unprecedented split between the one in power and the one who manages the administration’s resources, Cristina Kirchner and Alberto Fernández . It is clearly a leadership crisis, which prevented the definition of a course and paralyzed the action.
The The adverse result of the PASO for the ruling party has had as its only response a weak redefinition of its coalition. It is not clear where the power moved, nor who governs or with what plan, if any. The proposal is reduced to a change of scenery and a series of announcements of uncertain result that deepen the fiscal irresponsibility of the government.
From this map arises the question of how the government will face the two long years of its second stage . It is obvious that what you have will be insufficient. In addition, it is possible that in the November election he will lose deputies and senators. With this complex panorama, the ruling coalition will have to try new formulas to govern.
Governance 2.0 is a formula by which the government and the opposition are united in Together Due to the Change, they decide to agree for the next two years a limited agenda to facilitate the transition, which will be approved in Congress and respected by the parties; an unprecedented practice among us. Both have incentives to do so: the government, because it wants to moderate the effects of the crisis in the hope of recovering and being able to re-elect; the opposition, because he knows that an acceleration of events could leave him in a much more serious situation when he assumes power. Both sides win without altering the status quo or jeopardizing the possibility of running in elections. It is not a co-government or an expanded coalition by which a part of the opposition is part of the cabinet to guarantee the agreements.
Some Peronist governors and mayors and the leaders of the ruling party who are further away from Kirchnerist domination, on the one hand, and on the other, the heads of the opposition with government responsibility and the main candidates, could have greater incentives to agree on a governance agenda on core issues such as the budget and the financial law, the distribution of federal resources, the agreement with the IMF, the directing lines of foreign policy and electoral rules, which in this way would be left out of the the tirade and the electoral competition. The conglomerate of Kirchner leaders would have contrary incentives to join this formula.
This proposal, which has no antecedents in the periods of full democracy in our country, challenges the limits of Argentine politics. It also collides with the widespread opinion against political agreements, considered by our limited civic culture as spurious pacts, leadership negotiations, palace coups and collusion. Despite this, the 2.0 governance formula can facilitate stability and moderation in a landscape dominated by political stress, economic crisis and power vacuum , by reducing the high levels of confrontation and preserving spaces and themes for negotiation and agreement, which is not a small thing.
Political scientist
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