VZCZCXYZ0002
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHBU #0561/01 1321402
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 121402Z MAY 09
FM AMEMBASSY BUENOS AIRES
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 3701
INFO RUCNMER/MERCOSUR COLLECTIVE
RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC

C O N F I D E N T I A L BUENOS AIRES 000561 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/11/2039 
TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON AR
SUBJECT: Argentina: Candidates Announced; Former President 
Kirchner to Run in June 28 Congressional Mid-terms 
 
Ref:  (A) Buenos Aires 360 
(B) Buenos Aires 515 and previous 
(C) Buenos Aires 347 
 
Classified by Ambassador Wayne for reasons 1.4 (b) & (d). 
 
¶1. (C) Summary and introduction:  Former president Nestor 
Kirchner (NK) and his former vice president Daniel Scioli will 
head the ruling coalition's (FpV) ticket for congressional 
seats representing the electoral plum of Buenos Aires 
province, where the Kirchners have set their hopes on winning 
enough seats to retain a working majority in Congress.  The 
FpV also announced that Cabinet Chief Sergio Massa will take 
the fourth place on the FpV slate behind actress Nacha 
Guevara, famous for her portrayal of the iconic Evita Peron. 
The dissident Peronist slate will be headed by congressional 
deputies Francisco de Narvaez and Felipe Sola, and the UCR- 
Civic Coalition slate by Margarita Stolbizer and Ricardo 
Alfonsin.  In the next four biggest voting districts, the 
Kirchners are expected to lose, which makes the race in Buenos 
Aires province (with 37% of the national vote) the race to 
watch.  Now that parties and coalitions have finished their 
internal wrangling over nominations and positions on party 
slates for the June 28 congressional mid-term elections, 
Argentine campaigns are expected to swing into high gear and 
may even draw some the attention of an otherwise pretty 
indifferent public.  End summary and introduction. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Argentine political parties met the May 9 deadline 
for registering their lists of candidates for the June 28 
national congressional mid-term elections (some provinces and 
cities will also be holding legislative and city council 
elections, and some of these will coincide with the June 28 
date).  Since mid-March when the Congress approved President 
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's (CFK) bill to move up the 
legislative elections from October to June 28 (ref A), 
political leaders have been scurrying to define alliances and 
determine composition and order of candidate slates.  The 
province of Buenos Aires (with 37% of the national vote) is 
the electoral plum, and is the main hope of the Kirchners for 
retaining their slim working majority in the Congress -- 
particularly since they are widely expected to lose in the 
next four biggest districts: the federal capital, and the 
provinces of Cordoba, Santa Fe, and Mendoza. 
 
¶3. (SBU) The opposition, whose key candidates had been largely 
known by April, was quicker than the ruling Victory Front 
(FpV) in publishing its candidate slates.  May 9 local 
newspapers detailed the opposition parties' slates in the top 
electoral district of Buenos Aires province while the FpV 
waited until shortly before midnight on May 9 to announce its 
slate.  Media devoted unprecedented coverage to the parties' 
announcement of their slates, airing two special shows the 
evening of May 9 as the parties were formally presenting their 
candidates to the Electoral Court.  Although there are 
nominally over 40 national political parties and 650 local 
parties in Argentina, as has been the case in past elections, 
the principal candidates in the June mid-terms are backed by 
coalitions rather than individual parties.  Parties registered 
their electoral alliances (which included seven alliances in 
Buenos Aires province and nine in the Federal District) on 
April 29 (ref B). 
 
 
 
 
K Strategy in Buenos Aires Province: Circle the Wagons 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶4. (C) In Buenos Aires province, former president Nestor 
Kirchner (NK) and his 2003-07 vice president Daniel Scioli 
will head the FpV ticket for seats in the Chamber of Deputies. 
The province will elect 35 deputies, of which the FpV has 20 
seats at stake.  Scioli is now the governor of Buenos Aires 
province and, although he has the second spot on the FpV 
slate, is considered more popular than Kirchner.  If, as 
expected, he wins a congressional seat, he will likely step 
aside and let one of the FpV alternates take it so that he can 
continue as governor.  The press and opposition have referred 
to candidacies like Scioli's as ""testimonial candidates."" 
(Note: In early April, NK first floated the idea that he and 
Scioli would head the ticket as national deputies, accompanied 
by the Kirchner-allied province's mayors as town council 
candidates.)  NK has not categorically stated that he will 
serve in the Chamber of Deputies if elected, although in a May 
7 television interview he hinted that he would. 
 
¶5. (C) The FpV also announced that the popular Cabinet Chief 
Sergio Massa will take the fourth place on the FpV slate 
behind actress Nacha Guevara, a political novice famous for 
her stage portrayal of the iconic Evita Peron.  Massa is 
technically still the mayor of Tigre in suburban Buenos Aires, 
having taken a leave of absence from his mayoral duties in 
order to replace Alberto Fernandez as the foremost minister in 
the cabinet.  Like Scioli, the young (37) and attractive Massa 
enjoys higher ratings than the Kirchners.  His style is 
markedly more open, inclusive, and flexible than Nestor 
Kirchner's, triggering rumors about irreconcilable differences 
between the two.  Massa's inclusion on the slate may then 
temporarily quell the speculation about his ""imminent 
departure"" from the Cabinet Chief position, which has been a 
constant almost since the day he took the job at the end of 
July 2008.  (There are, however, strong rumors that soon after 
the June 28 election there will be a cabinet shuffle, which 
might also be the opportunity for Massa to depart, as his 
staff tells us he would like to do.) 
 
 
¶6. (C) Although initially the idea of having Kirchner head the 
FpV slate was that he would draw votes, some polls have 
indicated that he may be causing a net drain of votes for the 
FpV and that the ticket would be stronger without NK on it. 
To shore up support for the FpV tickets in the province, 
Kirchner reportedly insisted that 45 mayors and many other 
officials join the FpV slates for provincial and municipal 
legislative races to ensure their undivided commitment to the 
""oficialista"" lists.  It is perhaps an omen for the FpV's 
prospects that many highly popular mayors, ostensibly allied 
with the Kirchners, were openly reluctant to join the FpV 
slates.  Paper-of-record ""La Nacion"" quoted one mayor from the 
Greater Buenos Aires questioning the need for the mayors to 
run as candidates, saying ""people vote before they even read 
our names."" 
 
¶7. (C) With polls showing their support in the province 
hitting a ceiling of 35% or less, Kirchner and his allies are 
counting on the fractious opposition dividing the remainder of 
the vote in several smaller splinters.  Currently, the most 
serious challenge is from the dissident Peronist slate headed 
by congressional deputies Francisco de Narvaez and Felipe 
Sola.  The multi-millionaire De Narvaez and former governor 
Sola joined forces with Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, 
leader of center-right PRO, who will campaign for the ""Union- 
PRO"" candidates.  In the 2007 gubernatorial race in Buenos 
Aires province, De Narvaez drew 14.90% of the vote, which was 
considered an impressive showing since he did not have a 
presidential candidate at the top of his ticket. 
 
¶8. (C) In third place is the UCR-Civic Coalition slate headed 
by Margarita Stolbizer and Ricardo Alfonsin.  Stolbizer was 
the Civic Coalition's candidate for governor in 2007, when she 
drew 16.55% of the vote, and Alfonsin is the son of the 
recently deceased and warmly remembered president who led the 
1983-89 return to democracy.  Ironically, the Kirchners are 
reportedly counting on their nemesis, Vice President Cobos, to 
back up this ticket and, with his strong popularity, draw 
votes away from the dissident Peronists.  Nationwide, in the 
strongest showing of opposition unity in the last decade, the 
UCR, the CC, and the Socialists have forged an alliance in 16 
of the 24 voting districts that may provide a serious 
counterweight to the two major Peronist groupings.  Embassy 
contacts in the UCR-Civic Coalition alliance say their top 
priority is to impress upon voters that they, not the 
dissident Peronists, are the true opposition alternative to 
the Kirchners and the FpV.  In the province of Buenos Aires, 
there are also several smaller groupings which, together, 
could splinter off sufficient opposition votes to keep either 
the dissident Peronists or the UCR-Civic Coalition from 
beating the FpV. 
 
Candidates in the Federal District 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) The Kirchers' victory chances are low in the 
country's second electoral district, the Federal District, 
where the race is Mayor Macri's Republican Proposal's (PRO) to 
lose.  The Federal District has 9.5% of the total national 
vote (ref C) and will elect 13 deputies.  While just a few 
weeks ago, it seemed the Peronist party (PJ) might present 
three separate candidate slates in the Federal District, NK 
was able to convince almost all of the city's PJ to support 
the candidacy of Carlos Heller to lead the slate.  Heller is 
the current president of Credicoop Bank and was formerly 
active in the Communist party.  Former Buenos Aires Mayor 
Jorge Telerman, whose candidacy was advocated by some PJ 
sectors, backed out of the race, explaining that the national 
government had ""made it impossible to construct an autonomous 
Peronist political space.""  Heading the PRO ticket is the 
popular former Vice Mayor of Buenos Aires Gabriela Michetti, 
who recently resigned from the city government to run.  Former 
Central Bank chief Alfonso Prat Gay will be heading the UCR- 
Civic Coalition alliance slate followed by constitutional 
expert Ricardo Gil Lavedra and Civic Coalition leader Elisa 
Carrio (the 2007 presidential runner-up) in the third slot. 
 
Opposition Taking NK to Task 
---------------------------- 
 
¶10. (SBU) The opposition has wasted no time in responding to 
NK's decision to run in the June mid-terms along with other 
""testimonial candidates.""  Radical party leaders Gerardo 
Morales and Ricardo Gil Lavedra filed in federal court on May 
11 a legal challenge to the candidacies of NK, Scioli, Massa, 
and some mayors, whom they believe will not occupy their newly 
elected positions.   The alliance is also questioning the 
legality of NK's recent residency change from Santa Cruz 
province to Buenos Aires province, a requirement in order to 
run as a national deputy candidate in Buenos Aires province. 
(Comment:  The legal challenges are not expected to flourish 
but, ironically, could give NK a convenient cover if he should 
decide to bow out of the race at the last minute to boost his 
ticket's chances.) 
 
¶11. (SBU) At the same time, both PRO Union and the UCR-CC- 
Socialist alliance have challenged NK to a debate.  De Narvaez 
noted that if NK does not debate it would ""show his inability 
to be part of a democratic government.""  For her part, 
Stolbizer said, ""we are going to demand the debate, but sadly 
we believe that Kirchner will not participate.  His strategy 
has always been confrontation.""  She added that the debate 
needs to be with Kirchner and not just with De Narvaez.  NK, 
who has successfully avoided debates prior and during his 
presidency, has not responded. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶12. (C) Argentina's legislatures are the product of a party 
list system in which congressional deputies are voted at large 
by their provinces and are therefore more beholden to party 
leaders than to voters.  It is also a sad reflection on the 
weakness of political parties that these candidate lists were 
all decided behind closed doors by party leaders and factions. 
Argentine media have reported and speculated for months on 
potential candidacies, but interest in this process seemed to 
be the exclusive domain of the political class.  Now that the 
internal wrangling over the party and coalition slates is over 
and the candidates have been announced, we may see, in the 
nearly seven weeks remaining before an election that will make 
or break the government, some signs of greater interest by the 
public at large. 
 
WAYNE