Argentine: The plan of the opposition to impose the Single Ballot Law on the Government

A plenary of commissions in Deputies will have today the last informative meeting, before the opinion is signed next May 31. They are looking for a consensual project that also has the support of FdT senators, in spite of Cristina Kirchner’s rejection. What could happen in the Upper House and the risk of Alberto Fernández’s veto.

Today, the clashes between the ruling party and the opposition over the Single Paper Ballot (BUP) had an impasse in the Chamber of Deputies, with the plenary of commissions led by the twenty special guests -politicians and academics- who gave their opinion on the initiative promoted by the opposition agreement reached by Juntos por el Cambio, the Federal Interbloc, Provincias Unidas and José Luis Espert.

Although most of the guests were invited by JxC, the discussion in Annex C of the Lower House took place in a climate totally opposite to the tense atmosphere experienced last Wednesday, when legislators of the FdT described the debate as “unilateral and arbitrary”. Contrary to the official intention, the debate in the committees of Constitutional Affairs, Budget and Finance, and Justice was initiated by a motion voted in the chamber by an opposition majority of 132 votes.

The first speaker of the day in favor of the single ballot was Julia Pomares, chief advisor to the government of the City of Buenos Aires. She assured that the system has economic and environmental benefits, but remarked that the main thing is “to guarantee the right to elect and to be elected”. One of the main points questioned by the opposition is the vulnerability of the current system, due to the theft of ballots in the darkroom.

“The single ballot ensures that voters have all the options at their disposal, and that it does not depend on the characteristics of the political parties and their prosecutors”, argued the former director of CIPPEC.

In the same sense expressed Adrián Pérez, who was in charge of the political reform during the macrismo and in 2016 presented the failed single electronic ballot. He highlighted the fact that the single paper ballot is already used in all the countries of the region, except Uruguay, and pointed to the enormous expense of the partisan ballot, financed by the State: “In 2021 the printing of 1185 million ballots was paid, of which only 45 million were used”.

Perez demanded that the electoral reform guarantees “a list for each list in the PASO and two and a half lists for each list in the general elections”, and admitted one of the problems of the initiative: the simultaneity of dates, since the Congress would only legislate for the national elections, but not for the provincial and local elections, depending on each jurisdiction to join or not to join the same system. “On that point we have to find a way around it. Something has to be done, because putting the whole offer on a single ballot is a problem”, he pointed out.

Although there are almost twenty bills under debate, the opposition is mainly inclined between adopting two types of system: the Santa Fe one, where the ballot is organized by categories, or the Cordoba one, which has all the positions and candidates printed on a single piece of paper. “We seek to reach a consensus with a totally innovative system”, a radical deputy told elDiarioAR. The opposition expects to obtain an opinion on May 31 and to vote on the initiative during the first half of June.

With a more qualitative intervention, the former governor of Salta, Juan Manuel Urtubey, defended the single paper ballot: “This reform or any reform that is proposed must understand how we manage to make this representative system, which is frankly in crisis, so that the citizen can really feel represented by us”, said the former Peronist governor. Urtubey shared the experience of his province with the implementation of the single electronic ballot and considered that the modification of the electoral system is “substantive”, and asked to think about the “legitimization of origin due to the perception of the absence of full will of those who go to vote and end up voting for anything else”.

Another important political voice in favor of the electoral reform was that of Pablo Javkin, mayor of Rosario. He said that the current system “privatizes” the right to vote, and pondered that the single ballot avoids ballot theft and reduces printing costs, as well as helping to shorten the electoral calendar. “The Argentine electoral system is that of boxing: to beat the champion, only by knockout”, he said in reference to the lack of representation that, in his view, generates the current system.

On the other hand, Alejandra Pericola, from the Electoral Observatory of the UBA, highlighted that the single ballot system “has been used for years so that voters deprived of their freedom and Argentines living abroad can express their will” and said that “the National Electoral Chamber warned of the need to open the debate to establish a change in the electoral system”.

Among the few guest voices contributed by the FdT, participated political scientists Malena Magnasco and Laura Levy Hara, who warned about the bias on gender diversity of the reform: “The single paper ballot may imply a situation of inequality that may leave out people because of their gender”.

In turn, Andy Tow, from the UNTREF, pointed out that “the multilevel party ballot strengthens the parties” and pointed out that an electoral reform that is not supported by the provinces would make “the jurisdictions separate even more their calendar from the Nation”.

In the debate on the single ballot, projects prepared by Luciana Lospennato and Pablo Tonelli (PRO), Emilio Monzó (Federal Encounter), Enrique Estévez (Socialist Party) and Alejandro “Topo” Rodríguez (Identidad Bonaerense), as well as others by former legislators Gustavo Menna (UCR) and Jorge Enríquez (PRO), among others, will be put on the table. The informative meetings will be resumed on Tuesday, May 24, to finally seek an opinion on Wednesday, May 31, prior to the arrival of the bill to the Chamber.