A Change to Escape from the Shadow of Peronism

A Change to Escape from the Shadow of Peronism

“I think America has more than enough maturity and intelligence to start exercising its world leadership responsibly."

Cristina Kirchner

By: Erreh Svaia

If we look at what happened last Sunday, it seems that Argentina wants to give itself a new chance, a chance to break with the past and the heavy burden, almost unbearable to this point of Peronism, the movement, philosophy and political current that has isolated Argentina in the last decade, scaring external investment and immersing the country in a turbulent sea of currency controls leaving the whole country in a permanent state of uncertainty.

Argentina needs to escape it's past, it's amazing that after so many years, painful military dictatorships and decades of fragile and sabotaged "democracy", Argentina, once one of the richest countries in the continent, one of the most educated, and not so long ago, one of the most advanced in the region, has not been able to escape the terrible and imposing historical shadow of Juan Domingo Peron and his many political offspring still saturating the political space in the south of the continent.

Peronism was inspired initially by Juan Domingo Peron, a three time head of the government in Argentina, Peron was inspired by Argentina's European heritage, mostly it's Italian roots, to create a movement, a philosophy and an ideology that fuses Mussolini's fascism and populist tendencies, making it difficult to classify, to counteract and to defeat in a definite way (even after his death, and magnified even more by the mythic nature of his wife Eva Peron), Peron and Peronism are big myths in Argentineans' idiosyncrasy, and to be defeated at least temporarily, opposition has always used radical proposals with no good results in the long time, as a matter of fact, only Peronist candidates have been able to end their official terms, outsiders are usually forced to leave their positions after heavy political and social pressure is put on them.

In recent history we have witnessed the decline of Argentinean economy, masked by the government with help from the also manipulated media, and when evident immediately blamed on imperialism and outside factors, while the government spends lots of it's economical resources on creating big dependency by the heavy growth of bureaucracy and heavy payment of pensions and subsidies given to the population that leads to the production of a big wreckage on its financial sector, we can infer that Peronism has populist similarities to the 70s-plus years grip on the Mexican government by the PRI, as both movements, political parties or systems debilitate society's will and freedom by creating large bodies of bureaucracy at command of the official party, and creating welfare programs for the poor, this might not sound so bad, but the fact that in Argentina, for example, almost 50% of the population receives a salary or a certain kind of subsidy from the governments becomes a heavy burden almost impossible to keep alive.

The current face of Peronism in Argentina is Kichnerism a husband and wife tandem led by Nestor Kichner and his wife Cristina, the both have controlled the country for more than a decade, with a heavy hand on media, currency, bureaucracy and populist tendencies, but this days, Kichnerism ends, or apparently ends with a disappointing showing of its deigned candidate Daniel Sicoli, it seems that opposition´s main candidate Mauricio Macri has gathered enough support to achieve a technical tie in the polls, which gives him a big chance of winning the second round to be held in November 22.

This is the big change for Argentina to brake form it’s historical bindings and to start creating a new scenario for outside investment and free the currency in order to best maneuver in the middle of an economic storm that is about to arrive not only to Argentina, but to the rest of America Latina, with Argentina´s biggest economic partners, China and Brazil in serious troubles in the future, Macri, a conservative could be the key for Argentina to really escape form it´s past, this time with a serious steady pace and not in the form of a radical turn, it won´t be an easy thing for Macri to lead the country into more friendly and peaceful waters, but in the case of Scioli, the candidate of Peronism and Kichnerism, winning the second round in November, an economic crisis won´t be too far to become a reality in the southern country that leads to an even deeper economic fall for America in 2016.  

Peronism belongs to the past, Argentina to the future.