The recent electoral reform introduced by the government will bring about important changes in the political universe of political parties. With more than 700 organisations, the new rule makes it harder for parties to register and keep their status as such. Despite the first and evident reactions by many political groups, in particular the relatively small ones, the changes might bring about some positive aspects of the heavily fragmented political scenario.
On 3rd December 2009 the Senate gave the final approval to the electoral reform effectively changing several aspects of the system in Argentina. The law, presented only a few weeks before by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, was first passed by the Deputies chamber after modifying 50 items, due to heavy negotiations with the opposition parties.
The reform brings about lots of adjustments to the present law, but it does not dramatically alter the process. For example there is no discussion of electronic voting, or the single paper-ballot, electoral observations, the redefinition of functions of electoral bodies or the creation of a unique and autonomous, such as in Mexico.
The bill was endorsed at incredible speed, as on 10th December the newly elected representatives were due to take office, after which the government would no longer have a majority in Congress due to the defeat they suffered in the mid-term legislative elections of 28th June.
However, after negotiating in Congress and the law’s approval a few days later, Fernández de Kirchner vetoed the two articles that were vigorously supported by the opposition, rendering the debate useless. These articles were aimed at postponing important amendments that directly affected political parties, such as the required number of affiliates an organisation must possess to register and remain a recognised political party, (now set to four per thousand in the district or districts of action). Representatives agreed that these changes would only take effect after December 2011, meaning, after the presidential and legislative election scheduled for October 2011. The presidential decision shortens the time frame, not to mention that it undermines the role of the Congress, as it is regular in Argentine history.
In this article I will briefly go through the key changes introduced by the reform, focusing in the political parties’ organisation, and how it might positively affect the current scenario, despite strong criticism coming from small political groups.
Organisation of Political Parties
By far this was the matter that obliged the government’s policy makers to negotiate with their colleagues in the opposition. The reform envisages critical transformations in the political parties’ landscape, with its main objective being the reduction of the fragmentation of political groups: Argentina has 713 political parties, of which 34 operate at the national level. The new dispositions, a priori, negatively affect the existence of small parties, most of them lying at the left of the political spectrum, and strengthen the position of consolidated and traditional parties, like the Union Cívica Radical (UCR, centre) and the Partido Justicialista (also known as Peronist party, centre-left or centre-right, depending of the succeeding internal movement. For example, the Kirchners’ belongs to the left current of Peronism, while their predecessor in the presidential seat, and candidate again for 2011, Eduardo Duhalde, lies to the right).
One of the main controversial articles, number 16, preserves and reinforces a condition from the previous law: a party must attain at least two per cent of the valid votes in two consecutive national elections to remain recognized as a political organisation.
Given the results of the 2007 and 2009 elections, around 89 parties would be subject to lose their status. The majority of them, like the Workers Socialist Movement (MST) or the Partido Obrero have a left wing perspective, though we can also find right wing ones such as the Partido Popular de la Reconstrucción, all of them reaching less than 2% of the votes in the city of Buenos Aires, with more than a two and a half million strong electoral body.
If applied, the party (or parties) will have to register again, going through the process of forming a political group, a process which was lightly altered with the reform, making it less viable for citizens to create their political channel.
At first glance, this raises lots of criticisms, especially regarding how democratic it is to set a threshold for parties reducing the spectrum of choices for the elector.
However, a requirement of this sort might force the reordering of the political universe, reducing fragmentation. The left parties could achieve more if they were to unite their efforts, overcoming their differences, most of the times minimal. If we take the 2009 elections for the Deputies Chamber, in the city of Buenos Aires, these parties obtained 6.12% of the valid votes together. That would have effectively translated into a seat in the Lower Chamber, Congress. Instead, as most presented individual candidates, none obtained a seat. The Partido Autodeterminación y Libertad, who accumulated the most votes in the district, obtained 2%, below the 3% minimum required to enter the D’Hondt system calculations, according to the present rules.
In the previous example I have not included three parties that could also be place (with reservations) in the center left side of the spectrum: Proyecto Sur, who collected an impressive 24%, Diálogo por la Ciudad, with 3%, and Iniciativa Verde por Buenos Aires, with a slim 0.45%. If taken into account in the hypothetic left alliance the results would have dramatically, and evidently, changed.
Of course, their differences have made their union very difficult if not impossible. In the last election only one left front was formed, the Frente de Izquierda y los Trabajadores Anticapitalista (formed by the Movimiento al Socialismo, the Partido de los Trabajores Socialistas, and the Izquierda Socialista). Other groups did not participated even though their electoral platforms were very similar, such as the case of the MST. The difference was that the MST had supported the claim of the agricultural producers against the national government (in Argentina, some left wing parties consider large agricultural producers as the voice for conservative views).
Moreover, a wide reaching alliance has never been achieved, because of the relative laid back and lack of enforcement of the requirements to form and maintain a political party, which permits Argentina to count more than 700 parties. The new rules, approved by Congress could have a positive impact in making more evident and necessary for smaller and like minded factions to unite their efforts and set aside their differences.
A second and contentious issue in the same article is the obligation for all parties to demonstrate a minimum number of members, of four per thousand in each district of action, to be certified. Though the threshold is modest the initial agreement in Congress was to postpone the new registering process until the end of the presidential and legislative elections of 2011, so to give enough time for this massive reordering of the political choices. The move by President Fernández de Kirchner to veto the articles and bring forward the registering process will make it unfair for a number of new but quickly growing parties to keep up with the new system. The present time frame to complete the entire process and ensure participation in the future elections is negligible. Those reforms should have been implemented after 2011 as previously agreed. But as the executive has shown, early in 2009, by advancing the legislative elections four months for pure political convenience, there is little interest in fairly applying the rules. The electoral clock should always run independently from that of politics.
Hugo Passarello Luna is an Argentine journalist specialising in politics and economics. He has directed Argentina Elections (www.argentinaelections.com) since 2006, a leading site the Argentine electoral debate. Previously he worked as a columnist in Peru Elections and Left Turns?. In 2001 he was awarded the Global Citizen Award by the University of British Columbia.
Facebook comments