Argentina’s primary elections: Bad dress rehearsal

THE bizarre teaser election that Argentines had to take part in on August 11th was designed by Cristina Fernández, the president. She put her all into promoting her candidates, even flying her hand-picked hopeful for the most populous province of Buenos Aires to Brazil to be photographed with their compatriot, Pope Francis. Photographs of him, her and the pope were plastered across the province as campaign posters.The pontiff’s magic did not rub off. Ms Fernández’s Front for Victory (FPV) party did worse than at any time in its ten-year existence. As a referendum of sorts on her rule, the year after she grabbed control of YPF, an oil company owned by Spain’s Repsol, it does not augur well ahead of the elections in October for half of the seats in the lower house of Congress and two-thirds of those in the upper house.The election was nominally a primary aimed at weeding out the tiniest parties ahead of the mid-terms and enabling voters to choose which candidates should represent the bigger ones. In fact, most parties had picked their representatives beforehand, turning the process into a laborious straw poll.The FPV, which has enjoyed a majority in both houses since Ms Fernández was re-elected with 54% of the vote in 2011, did best, winning 26% of all votes cast. But it was the only party to field candidates almost nationwide. It lost in the capital and in 14 of Argentina’s...



via The Economist: The Americas http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21583708-cristina-fern-ndez-has-uphill-struggle-ahead-mid-term-elections-bad-dress-rehearsal?fsrc=rss%7Came