(Buenos Aires) The center-left coalition of Argentine President Alberto Fernandez lost control of both chambers of parliament on Sunday during partial legislative elections, according to a source close to the government on the basis of projections with nearly 98% of the votes counted.
“If the figures are confirmed, the majority is lost in the Senate,” this source told AFP.
Mr. Fernandez’s “Frente de Todos” (“Front de tous”) coalition did not already have a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. In the Senate, according to projections, the Peronist ruling coalition would drop from 41 senators (out of a total of 72) to 35.
The head of state since 2019, to whom two years of mandate remain, has in a speech in the form of an admission of defeat announced a “new stage” of government, and called for “a fruitful relationship with parliament”.
He indicated that he was going to approach other political forces with a view to an “agreement on a program as shared as possible” with “a responsible opposition, open to dialogue, and patriotic”.
According to projections and pending final figures, the Peronist coalition, although in the minority, should remain the leading group in each of the two chambers. But by losing ground on the center-right coalition “Juntos por el Cambio” (Together for change) of former president (2015-2019) Mauricio Macri.
According to several political analysts, the minority government of Mr. Fernandez should see its room for maneuver greatly reduced until the presidential election of 2023. It will be reduced to engaging only consensual policies, forging ad hoc alliances with independents or microparties. or even resort to decrees.
Mr. Fernandez nevertheless affirmed Sunday that he kept “the firmness necessary to defend the interests of our motherland” with a view to a “viable agreement” with the IMF, to which Argentina must repay from 2022 more than 19 billion dollars , out of the 44 of a loan granted under the Macri presidency. “We need to dispel the uncertainties associated with unsustainable debts like this,” he said. “To negotiate is not to obey”
Argentina is back on the path to growth this year, after three years of recession, and a strong socio-economic impact of COVID-19, but still faces galloping inflation (41.8% in 2021), with more than 40% of its population stricken by poverty.