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Argentina fan celebrates after the World Cup match against Mexico.
World Cup heats up Argentina’s presidential race
When Argentina faces Poland in their do-or-die last group stage match on Wednesday, one thing will be missing at the stadium in Qatar: Argentine politicians.
In the soccer-crazy South American nation, políticos rarely watch the Albiceleste, in person to avoid getting blamed for a loss. Former President Mauricio Macri didn’t get the memo, as he attended — in his new FIFA gig — Argentina’s shocking loss to Saudi Arabia last week. Almost on cue, fans responded by launching an online petition for Macri and his bad juju to stay as far away as possible from GOAT Leo Messi and his crew.
But the brouhaha over Macri is part of a bigger story: The former president has hinted he might want to get his old job back in next year’s election.
Less than a year out from the vote, these are turbulent times in Argentina. Ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet and to figure out how much basic items will actually cost each day, with inflation expected to reach 100% by the end of the year.
The government has thrown the kitchen sink at the problem, but neither IMF austerity to restore confidence in the peso nor direct intervention through price controls have worked to tame runaway inflation. COVID also did a lot of damage, and, to be fair, Argentina’s economic disaster is a legacy of decades of mismanagement, spending beyond its means, and stiffing creditors.
What’s more, no one knows who’ll run in the end. If the center-right Macri throws his hat in the ring, he’ll probably face either deeply unpopular President Alberto Fernández or frenemy VP Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (no relation), who held the top job from 2007-2015. Both are from the traditional left — especially Cristina, whom Argentines refer to by her first name.
A face-off between candidates like this would be deeply polarizing for a country that has swung back and forth on the ideological spectrum twice in the past decade. Macri — who’s not a shoo-in for the nomination if he runs — is as loved by his supporters and hated by his critics as Cristina is.
The feisty vice president is currently under indictment for corruption, but Cristina will probably never see the inside of a prison cell even if she’s convicted. And she demonstrated that she still owns the streets after surviving a recent assassination attempt.
There's also a domestic soccer angle with Macri. The former president got into politics after winning many trophies as president of Boca Juniors, whose supporters call themselves La mitad más uno (Half plus one) as the most popular team in Buenos Aires and all of Argentina.
You’d think that Boca fans would be all in for the man that led the team to so much success — yet most xeneizes are working-class people who’ve historically voted left and won’t cheer for a rich businessman like Macri. Perhaps that’s why the ex-president has, until now, favored Patricia Bullrich, his popular tough-on-crime former security minister.
Whoever leads the opposition ticket is favored to win. A recent poll shows that two-thirds of Argentinians want the ruling Peronista coalition out of power. That’s consistent with a broader trend in the region: For nearly a decade now, Latin Americans have been consistently voting out incumbents, regardless of their ideology.
One rising presidential hopeful is upstart Javier Milei, an eccentric libertarian economist and TV personality who claims not to have brushed his hair since he was 13. The independent Milei, who’s making waves with populist gimmicks like auctioning off his paycheck, would need strong party backing to go all the way, but his early surge tells you a lot about where Argentine voters’ heads are right now.
One thing is clear — the current president is toast. "Even if Argentina wins the World Cup, it is almost certain that Fernández would lose the election," says Eurasia Group analyst Luciano Sigalov. "Whatever politicians like to say, there is no evidence of a relationship between success in sport and politics."
Thought bubble: Although Macri's approval ratings had already started to drop before the 2018 World Cup in Russia, his numbers really began to tank soon after Argentina was eliminated due to the president’s own economic blunders. He never recovered and lost his re-election bid to Fernández.
It sure looks like the incumbent will meet the same fate as his predecessor — if Fernández runs at all.
FÚTBOL FIASCO: ARGENTINA AT A CROSSROADS
It was supposed to be a triumphant moment—an opportunity to showcase Argentina's soccer prowess and to escape, if only momentarily, the gloom of a spiraling domestic economic situation. Scheduled for Saturday, the last match of Latin America's premier soccer finale, the Copa Libertadores, pitted two cross-town rivals from the capital Buenos Aires for the first time in the tournament's 58-year history.
But the match for the ages was not to be. It was suspended after fanatic supporters of River Plate, one of the competing teams, attacked a bus carrying members of the rival Boca Juniors club, hospitalizing numerous players. To avoid further violence, the final will now take place outside of Argentina.
The mishandling of security around the event, where violence was widely expected, comes at a delicate moment for Argentina and its president, Mauricio Macri.
A country at a crossroads. Elected in 2015, the business-friendly Mr. Macri swept into office on the promise to revitalize a struggling economy after decades of mismanagement by his far-left predecessors. Three years in, he's attempting a careful balancing act between his domestic and foreign audiences, amid an economic crisis that has seen Argentina fall into a deep recession.
Investors are watching carefully to see whether Mr. Macri has enough mettle to implement reforms while voters at home fear the pinch of further cuts to government programs that help them make ends meet.
Growing class divides? In his efforts, Mr. Macri, who hails from one of Argentina's wealthiest families, isn't helped by the fact that the rivalry between Boca Juniors and River Plate has distinct class undertones – with River drawing it support from the capital's wealthy suburbs and Boca it working-class neighborhoods. (In a twist, Mr. Macri was the president of Boca for over a decade before his election.)
The country's most famous footballer, Diego Maradona, seized on this line of criticism: "I hate violence, and what does it matter to Macri? He has been the son of millionaires all his life." The unusually ferocious clash between Boca Juniors and River Plate may be indicative of deepening class divisions and growing animus toward a wealthy president.
Mr. Macri's approval rating stands around 36 percent today, down about 30 percentage points over the past year.
Welcome to Buenos Aires. Suffering a setback at home, Mr. Macri is also preparing to welcome the leaders of the world's largest economies to Argentina for the annual G20 meeting this weekend. Macri intended to use the high-profile summit to reassure foreign leaders and investors that Argentina fundamentally remains a good bet. A toxic cocktail of sport and class rivalries has just made that a harder sell.