Sunday, January 17, 2010
Elections Next Door
Millionaire Sebastián Piñera from the right-wing Coalición por el Cambio (Coalition for Change) won the second round of elections today in Chile. He faced off against Eduardo Frei, center-left candidate of Concertación. This win is historic, marking the first time since 1958 that the right has won democratic elections. (Pinochet's dictatorship from 1973-1990, of course, accounts for many of those years.) Early results attribute 51% of the vote to Piñera against Frei's 48%. This is the first time since 1990 that the center-left Concertación has lost elections.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Flooding in San Antonio
Recent severe floods in San Antonio de Areco have been attributed to multiple canals illegally created by agricultural producers to drain their fields. According to Página 12, one of these canals was made by Hugo Biolcati, president of the Sociedad Rural Argentina, one of the agricultural groups laying political pressure on the government. Producers deemphasize the importance of these illegal canals and their role in recent flooding.
For more, in Spanish, see this.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Legislative elections 2009
As the date for legislative elections, slated for June 28 this year in Argentina, nears, here are some of the basics of the Argentine electoral system.
Legislative power is carried out by the Congress which consists of the Senate (72 seats) and the Chamber of Deputies (257 seats).
Senators are elected (by direct vote in each province) for six-year terms, a third up for reelection every two years. Each of Argentina's 23 provinces plus the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires is represented by three Senators (24 x 3 = 72). (When the vote on a particular issue is a tie, the Vice President votes.) All Senators in a given province are up for vote at the same time. In other words, in a given electoral year, a third of the provinces take part in Legislative Elections for the Senate. Each province is represented by two Senators from the winning party and one from the party in second place.
This year, the provinces participating in elections for the Senate are the following: Catamarca, Córdoba, Corrientes, Chubut, La Pampa, Mendoza, Santa Fe and Tucumán.
Members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected for a period of four years, half being up for election every two years. The vote is done through a system of proportional representation using party lists (voters vote for a list rather than a specific candidate and seats are allocated in the order of ranking on the list according to the proportion of votes won by the party).
There are currently 257 seats distributed among the provinces according to population but this number can change every ten years in accordance with census results. (The Province of Buenos Aires, for instance, currently holds 70 seats; the City of Buenos Aires, 25; and Tierra del Fuego, 5.)
A third of the candidates presented by the parties must be women.
*Information taken from Wikipedia.
Legislative power is carried out by the Congress which consists of the Senate (72 seats) and the Chamber of Deputies (257 seats).
Senators are elected (by direct vote in each province) for six-year terms, a third up for reelection every two years. Each of Argentina's 23 provinces plus the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires is represented by three Senators (24 x 3 = 72). (When the vote on a particular issue is a tie, the Vice President votes.) All Senators in a given province are up for vote at the same time. In other words, in a given electoral year, a third of the provinces take part in Legislative Elections for the Senate. Each province is represented by two Senators from the winning party and one from the party in second place.
This year, the provinces participating in elections for the Senate are the following: Catamarca, Córdoba, Corrientes, Chubut, La Pampa, Mendoza, Santa Fe and Tucumán.
Members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected for a period of four years, half being up for election every two years. The vote is done through a system of proportional representation using party lists (voters vote for a list rather than a specific candidate and seats are allocated in the order of ranking on the list according to the proportion of votes won by the party).
There are currently 257 seats distributed among the provinces according to population but this number can change every ten years in accordance with census results. (The Province of Buenos Aires, for instance, currently holds 70 seats; the City of Buenos Aires, 25; and Tierra del Fuego, 5.)
A third of the candidates presented by the parties must be women.
*Information taken from Wikipedia.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Illicit Election $ or FBI Plot?
As usual, the NYT does it's best to dirty Cristina Kirchner's image. While the version of the story included in the article may be true, there's another (and perhaps equally convincing) theory that holds that the whole thing is an FBI attempt to dirty the images of both Venezuela and Argentina by setting up the cash "transfer" and "accidentally" (with lots of media coverage) having it discovered. The truth is that we'll probably never find out what really happened.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Back to School!
Haven't had much time to write lately and this blog's been suffering from abandon. Reading the news, however, some things are too much not to share. I'll try to at least post brief mentions of some of them in the coming month and links to the articles (in Spanish).
So for today:
The city government (headed up by conservative businessman Mauricio Macri), is putting the city on a diet, squeezing money out of schools and hospitals, social programs and public spending. (Although recently they did announce new public funding for private schools, the majority of which are religious.) The latest? Canceling a program that distributed school supplies (pencils, notebooks, etc) to 30,000 low income school children. How much does the city save? 280,000 pesos (approx. $93,000).
They've also cut out minimal scholarships for students, turned a blind eye to the absence of heating in many schools, and cheapened cafeteria food, replacing the minimal amount of cold cuts with some sort of (apparently inedible) soy mixture. Teachers are on strike for what I think is the fifth time (since the school year began in March) but the government says it won't talk to them until 2009.
So for today:
The city government (headed up by conservative businessman Mauricio Macri), is putting the city on a diet, squeezing money out of schools and hospitals, social programs and public spending. (Although recently they did announce new public funding for private schools, the majority of which are religious.) The latest? Canceling a program that distributed school supplies (pencils, notebooks, etc) to 30,000 low income school children. How much does the city save? 280,000 pesos (approx. $93,000).
They've also cut out minimal scholarships for students, turned a blind eye to the absence of heating in many schools, and cheapened cafeteria food, replacing the minimal amount of cold cuts with some sort of (apparently inedible) soy mixture. Teachers are on strike for what I think is the fifth time (since the school year began in March) but the government says it won't talk to them until 2009.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Religion in Argentina
Last Wednesday, the national paper Página 12, published the results of the first national survey on religious beliefs carried out by the organization CONICET along with five universities. They surveyed 2403 adults across the country. Some of the results are surprising. Apparently 9 out of 10 Argentines believe in God. Approximately 76% identify as Catholics, 11% as atheist, agnostic or of no religion, 9% as Evangelists, 1% Jehovah’s Witnesses, 1% Mormons and the remaining 1% are divided among other religions. At the same time, ¾ “rarely or never” attend church or other places of worship and many differ in opinion with the Vatican on important issues:
6 out of 10 support the decriminalization of abortion in special circumstances (in cases of rape, danger to the health or life of the mother, etc)
9 out of 10 want the government to promote the use of prophylactics to prevent the spread of HIV
9 out of 10 support sex education in schools and 8 out of 10 believe that “all” methods of contraception should be discussed
8 out of 10 also believe that a person can use contraception and still be a “faithful believer” and more than half consider premarital sexual relations “a positive experience”.
Logically, the highest proportion of “non-believers” is concentrated in the capital city with approximately 20% declaring their “indifference” to religion.
6 out of 10 support the decriminalization of abortion in special circumstances (in cases of rape, danger to the health or life of the mother, etc)
9 out of 10 want the government to promote the use of prophylactics to prevent the spread of HIV
9 out of 10 support sex education in schools and 8 out of 10 believe that “all” methods of contraception should be discussed
8 out of 10 also believe that a person can use contraception and still be a “faithful believer” and more than half consider premarital sexual relations “a positive experience”.
Logically, the highest proportion of “non-believers” is concentrated in the capital city with approximately 20% declaring their “indifference” to religion.
Monday, August 25, 2008
The Latest
Due to problems with my internet connection, I haven't been able to update for the last several weeks. However, I'm back now so here's a brief summary of some of the most interesting things that have been going on:
And after the vote...?
Despite the fact that they essentially “won” the vote in Congress last month, leaders of the various agricultural organizations are giving the government a kind of ultimatum (along the lines of “time is running out”) for their demands to be met. They’re threatening to begin a new lockout among other types of protest –similar to what we saw last March when dairy products, meat and some vegetables were suddenly absent from local stores. The tone of their demands and their relations with the current government are beginning to look like the emergence of an organized and coherent opposition (party?). They appear, for instance, to be much more interested in political opposition to the government, in making their demands public and in relations with the media then in actual negotiations. On the one hand, a coherent opposition is a sign of a healthy democracy and, in forcing the government to be clearer about its agenda and attentive to all sectors of society, could also have beneficial effects on the current government. However, it must also be noted that many of the key figures emerging politically in the agricultural sector, have not been historically “democratic” players (directly or indirectly associated with past military dictatorships and/or their objectives). Furthermore, they have some very powerful financial interests on their side as well as most national media.
Cobos for President?
Meanwhile, following the vote last month of vice president Cobos (now popularly referred to as “Cleto” his unusual middle name), against his own government’s bill in Congress, it looks increasingly like he’s positioning himself to campaign for president in 2011. It’s a long way off, but the Legislature will have elections next year and candidates are already being debated. Following the vote, there has been a divide within the government between the Cobos-loyal Radicals (Cobos was originally from the UCR –the Radical Civic Union; his party threw him out when he ran on the ballot with Cristina last December) and the “K” Radicals, those loyal to the current government. Last month many of the Cobos loyal Radicals resigned from their positions within the government and Cobos is increasingly seen with figures associated with the agricultural sector, appearing at rural expos and events from which the government has otherwise been deliberately absent. The UCR recently hinted that it will consider welcoming back those thrown out of the party for their relationship with the FPV (Cristina’s party). It also appears that the government is considering its own candidates for the upcoming 2009 elections in places where Cobos would have loyal candidates. In other words, the current government is something like a beast with two heads. For the moment, one is largely neutralized.
Taking Flight
Since the vote on export tariffs, the government has been dealing with another important bill in Congress: the re-nationalization of Argentine Airlines (Aerolíneas Argentinas) from a Spanish company that is essentially bankrupt. The company originally belonged to the State and was privatized in the “neoliberal” 90s (by then president Carlos Menem). In order to make sure that this time their project gained approval (they couldn’t afford another loss in Congress), the government made multiple concessions to other political parties and the opposition. The bill passed with two thirds of the votes. The debate was notably less fierce, the issues (and interests) at stake much less contentious.
Those Poor Farmers
Lastly, the government recently changed their Secretary of Agriculture. Carlos Cheppi this weekend gave his first public interview to the press (newspaper Página 12) in which he comments on, among others, the issue of defining so-called “small” and “medium” producers. Cheppi says: “We’re talking about producers who are dealing with one million or 500,000 dollars and who are also owners of the land, of significant capital. [...] They are people who are dealing with a lot of money, who earn a lot of money, [and are by no means] poor. And I’m not saying this as if it were something negative. On the contrary, they are a sector that dynamizes the economy, that reinvests, that have sent their sons to study and whose sons have today put the sector at the leading edge of competitivity in agriculture on an international scale. The problem is that perhaps they can no longer be considered small producers”. (The entire interview, in Spanish, is here.)
And after the vote...?
Despite the fact that they essentially “won” the vote in Congress last month, leaders of the various agricultural organizations are giving the government a kind of ultimatum (along the lines of “time is running out”) for their demands to be met. They’re threatening to begin a new lockout among other types of protest –similar to what we saw last March when dairy products, meat and some vegetables were suddenly absent from local stores. The tone of their demands and their relations with the current government are beginning to look like the emergence of an organized and coherent opposition (party?). They appear, for instance, to be much more interested in political opposition to the government, in making their demands public and in relations with the media then in actual negotiations. On the one hand, a coherent opposition is a sign of a healthy democracy and, in forcing the government to be clearer about its agenda and attentive to all sectors of society, could also have beneficial effects on the current government. However, it must also be noted that many of the key figures emerging politically in the agricultural sector, have not been historically “democratic” players (directly or indirectly associated with past military dictatorships and/or their objectives). Furthermore, they have some very powerful financial interests on their side as well as most national media.
Cobos for President?
Meanwhile, following the vote last month of vice president Cobos (now popularly referred to as “Cleto” his unusual middle name), against his own government’s bill in Congress, it looks increasingly like he’s positioning himself to campaign for president in 2011. It’s a long way off, but the Legislature will have elections next year and candidates are already being debated. Following the vote, there has been a divide within the government between the Cobos-loyal Radicals (Cobos was originally from the UCR –the Radical Civic Union; his party threw him out when he ran on the ballot with Cristina last December) and the “K” Radicals, those loyal to the current government. Last month many of the Cobos loyal Radicals resigned from their positions within the government and Cobos is increasingly seen with figures associated with the agricultural sector, appearing at rural expos and events from which the government has otherwise been deliberately absent. The UCR recently hinted that it will consider welcoming back those thrown out of the party for their relationship with the FPV (Cristina’s party). It also appears that the government is considering its own candidates for the upcoming 2009 elections in places where Cobos would have loyal candidates. In other words, the current government is something like a beast with two heads. For the moment, one is largely neutralized.
Taking Flight
Since the vote on export tariffs, the government has been dealing with another important bill in Congress: the re-nationalization of Argentine Airlines (Aerolíneas Argentinas) from a Spanish company that is essentially bankrupt. The company originally belonged to the State and was privatized in the “neoliberal” 90s (by then president Carlos Menem). In order to make sure that this time their project gained approval (they couldn’t afford another loss in Congress), the government made multiple concessions to other political parties and the opposition. The bill passed with two thirds of the votes. The debate was notably less fierce, the issues (and interests) at stake much less contentious.
Those Poor Farmers
Lastly, the government recently changed their Secretary of Agriculture. Carlos Cheppi this weekend gave his first public interview to the press (newspaper Página 12) in which he comments on, among others, the issue of defining so-called “small” and “medium” producers. Cheppi says: “We’re talking about producers who are dealing with one million or 500,000 dollars and who are also owners of the land, of significant capital. [...] They are people who are dealing with a lot of money, who earn a lot of money, [and are by no means] poor. And I’m not saying this as if it were something negative. On the contrary, they are a sector that dynamizes the economy, that reinvests, that have sent their sons to study and whose sons have today put the sector at the leading edge of competitivity in agriculture on an international scale. The problem is that perhaps they can no longer be considered small producers”. (The entire interview, in Spanish, is here.)
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