VZCZCXYZ0000
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBU #0285 0722106
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 132106Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 3273
INFO RUCNMER/MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS BUENOS AIRES 000285 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM PHUM AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINE PRESIDENT PROPOSES MOVING UP LEGISLATIVE 
ELECTIONS BY FOUR MONTHS TO JUNE 
 
¶1. (SBU) Summary:  Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de 
Kirchner (CFK) announced March 13 that she will ask Congress 
to change the date of this year's national legislative 
elections from October 25 to June 28.  To do so, Congress 
needs to change the election law by March 28.  CFK argued 
that she wanted to move up the elections so that the country 
could address the global economic crisis undistracted by 
election politicking.  It would be "suicidal," she said, to 
keep Argentina in suspense until October.  Opposition comment 
so far has been largely, but not entirely, negative.  End 
Summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) With former president Nestor Kirchner at her side, 
CFK made her announcement in the southern province of Chubut, 
one day after Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri said he was 
calling city council elections for June 28.  CFK used Macri's 
announcement as another argument for moving up the national 
congressional elections, and she urged provincial governors 
to synchronize their local elections with her proposed June 
28 date.  (In another noteworthy element of her 
extemporaneous remarks, CFK once again blamed the "First 
World" for the global crisis that threatened to victimize 
Argentina and undo much of the economic progress that 
Argentina had made since its 2001-02 crisis.) 
 
 
¶3. (SBU) Argentine electoral law currently stipulates that 
elections will be held the fourth Sunday of October (which 
this year would be October 25).  Experts interviewed on 
television said that changing the election date would require 
the approval of an absolute majority in Congress (or 129 
votes in the Chamber of Deputies and 37 in the Senate).  The 
electoral law also requires that elections be convoked with 
90 days' advance notice.  That means that, for elections to 
be held June 28, the legislative fix would need to be 
completed no later than March 30. 
 
¶4. (U) The opposition's initial reaction was negative, but 
not uniformly so.  Margarita Stolbizer of the Civic Coalition 
(CC) and Senator Gerardo Morales of the Radical Party (UCR) 
appeared side by side on television to denounce the Kirchner 
move as harmful to the country's institutionality.  They 
rejected CFK's use of the global crisis as a justification 
for "breaking the rules," and asserted that clear rules are 
central to a democracy.  Stolbizer criticized CFK's failure 
to consult the opposition before making her decision and 
announcing it, and Morales said it was another example of the 
Kirchners' penchant for controversy and conflict rather than 
consensus.  Morales said the surprise announcement was a sign 
of Kirchner desperation, and that Nestor Kirchner "had lost 
his mind" due to his defeat in Catamarca's March 8 provincial 
elections.  The initial reaction by the other significant 
vector of the opposition, the "dissident Peronists," was more 
muted, with Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri and 
congressional deputy Francisco de Narvaez indicating they did 
not agree with moving up the elections but were prepared to 
go along with it if approved by Congress. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶5. (SBU) As post has noted before, the Kirchners love to make 
surprise announcements.  They succeeded in catching most 
everyone off guard with this one: there were no advance leaks 
or rumors of the move, and our hunch is that they saw an 
opening in Mayor Macri's March 12 announcement of city 
council elections on June 28 and made their own decision in 
less than 24 hours.  The Kirchners are likely seeking to 
shift tables on the opposition and disrupt or short-circuit 
any gathering momentum for opposition leaders in the wake of 
Nestor Kirchner's setback in the province of Catamarca (see 
Buenos Aires 0255).  The opposition's diverging reactions 
remind one of how divided it is.  The instantaneous 
interpretation of some embassy contacts is that the Kirchners 
decided to move up the elections because trend lines in the 
polls indicate that their public support will only decline 
with time as the Argentine economy deteriorates through the 
course of the year.  The change in election date needs to be 
approved by Congress, however.  It is very much an open 
question as to whether the Kirchner administration has the 
votes to prevail. 
WAYNE