The records that the PASO will break and the most striking historical data to be able to interpret the results

In the three presidential PASO developed up to the present, in 2011, 2015 and 2019, the formula with the most votes was always the Peronist one and it was also the one that later won the general elections, although not necessarily the one that ended up governing. The statement requires an effort in the memory and seems to defy common sense, but it is rigorously true.

This is just one of the points highlighted in the report of the School of Government of the Austral University produced by Marcelo Bermolén, director of the Institutional Quality Observatory. Others are, for example, that the highest participation occurred in 2011 (78.6%) and its reverse was 2015, with the highest absenteeism and blank votes. Or that, on average, four out of ten fronts do not exceed the floor of 1.5%, but This year the “bochados” could multiply, because the PASO are coming with the largest number of presidential formulas in the dark room. And another oddity: from 2011 onwards, the number of votes obtained by the government of the day has been plummeting.

Better to go in parts.

In 2011, Cristina Kirchner and Amado Boudou, they reaped 50.2%, to later prevail in the first round with 54% over an opposition diaspora. In 2015, Daniel Scioli and Carlos Zannini added 38.6%, surpassing Mauricio Macri, who barely collected 24.5% (plus another five points from Ernesto Sanz and Elisa Carrió). Scioli prevailed again in October, with 37%, over Macri’s 34%, who just turned the tables in the ballotage, when without other forces in the dispute, he gathered 51.3% of the votes, against the 48.6% of the motorboater. The accounts are simplified again in 2019, when Alberto Fernandez and Cristina Kirchner they were supported by 47.8%, to later exceed 48.2%, eight points above Macri.

There is another way to record this background: “The only time that the opposition opened up to discuss its internal affairs with various options for the electorate, even though it had not won the PASO, it finally became a government (Cambiemos 2015),” the report states.

Thus, from the 50.24% achieved by Cristina Kirchner-Amado Boudou in 2011, it went to the 38.67% of Daniel Scioli-Carlos Zannini in 2015, to complete the decline with 31.80% of the Mauricio Macri-Miguel formula. Ángel Pichetto during 2019. A trend that Sergio Massa and Agustín Rossi will have to break this year, if they hope to reach the October general elections with chances.

In the three previous elections, the ruling party always presented itself as the only formula for its front: Cristina Kirchner-Boudou in 2011, Scioli-Carlos Zannini in 2015 and Macri-Pichetto in 2019.

The Bermolén report recalls that since the creation by law of the PASO, in 2009, its use has been resisted by some sectors especially linked to the officialism of the day. “To the point that requests and bills circulated to repeal them -or suspend their application- for the national elections of 2019 and 2023, during the governments of Mauricio Macri and the current President Alberto Fernández, attempts that failed to take effect,” he points out.

It also points out that the 2023 elections take place “in the midst of dubious electoral reforms carried out in many provinces, which have unfolded their electoral calendar and which repealed or suspended the application of their local PASO, restoring in several cases the questioned law of slogans, such as San Juan, San Luis and Salta”.

Since its launch, the record for participation in the presidential PASO was set with its premiere in 2011, with 78.66% of citizens eligible to vote. In the opposite direction, the 2015 presidential PASO registered the lowest percentage of attendance with 74.91%. The 2019 presidential primaries operated with a slight rebound, with 76.4% voter turnout. However, the elections held so far in different provinces and municipalities mark a downward trend in these percentages.

“It is worth noting that the PASO are an Argentine rarity, while no other country forces parties and voters to attend the selection of candidates,” adds the report, to recall that its defenders value the primaries because they grant predictability, order the electoral offer and they encourage citizen participation, while their detractors warn that they violate the autonomy of the parties, fragment and generate boredom among voters.

The 2015 PASO registered the lowest citizen participation and at the same time exhibited the highest percentage of blank votes (5.06%), which added to null votes (1.06%) gives a total of 6.12% of votes. not affirmative and invalid. This could show a certain link between electoral apathy (lack of interest in going to vote) and the issuance of non-affirmative votes as a way of claiming. A phenomenon on the rise also in this year’s provincial and municipal elections, which could be combined with high abstention this Sunday.

If the trend registered in the provinces points to a drop in participation and an increase in blank and null votes, the number of candidates registered this year to compete breaks all records. “They will be the presidential primaries with the largest number of fronts that are presented in competition (15), with the largest number of lists by presidential formula (27). and the largest number of fronts that present more than one list in dispute for internal competition (7)”, highlights the report.

In the STEP of In 2011 and 2019, only ten fronts were presented to the primaries, but all with a single list in each one of them. In the 2015 PASO, more fronts (11) and presidential formulas (15) were presented.

As only the ballots that reach 1.5% of the votes exceed the PASO, It is taken for granted that this year there will be a record number of “bochadas” candidacies. In 2011, with 10 formulas in dispute, the 30% of those who presented a list of candidates for president and vice president did not reach the minimum floor. In 2015, with 15 presidential formulas, those discarded reached the 45,45%. In 2019, again with 10 applications, the 40% did not make the cut.

If the four elections are taken into account, between 2011 and 2023 a total of 62 presidential formulas were presented. But only 26 competed in the PASO within their own front in true internals. In other words, the remaining 36 were unique formulas for each front.

The report also records a certain similarity between the PASO of 2015 and the PASO of 2023: they are the only two where -effectively- the big political forces open their internal competition and offer two -or more- pre-candidates for president and vice president.

The 2019 PASO were the most polarizedsince between the two most voted formulas they concentrated almost 80% of the votes: the Frente de Todos added 47.79% and Cambiemos 31.8%. For his part, the most competitive PASO were those of 2015with scarcely 2% difference between Scioli, who obtained 38.67% and Cambiemos (Macri plus Sanz and Carrió), with 36.74%.

This Sunday, anticipates the report, “highly competitive PASO are looming, just like those of 2015”. In any case, or for the same reason, he warns that “there are fears that this Sunday there will be a low citizen participation and there is a high percentage of blank and null votesjust like in 2015″.

When evaluating participation by gender, the report indicates that this year 67% of female participation was reached once again if the noted pre-candidates for president and vice president are counted (26% + 41%, respectively), matching the performance of the 2015 (20% + 47%).

“With the added value that the pre-candidacies for president are greater, prioritizing the figure of women in terms of roles. Put another way, at global percentage parity, there are more female presidential candidates in 2023 versus more female vice presidential candidates in 2015″, she adds.

Finally, although it highlights that this year “breaks with the decrease in female presidential candidacies that has taken place since 2011,” the paper notes that female participation never reached 50%, neither in the categories of presidential candidates nor in those of vice president

THE NATION