Argentina’s midterm elections will be decisive for Fernández’s survival

Argentina’s voting season is underway, after parties last week confirmed their candidates for the September 12 primaries and the November 14 midterm election proper, with TV campaigns officially starting on Monday, August 9.

The most salient result of the nomination process is that the ruling Frente de Todos coalition will run undivided in most key districts, while the opposition’s tickets will be decided between several alternatives available in the primaries.

In Buenos Aires Province – the behemoth holding more than one-third of the Argentinian population and by far the most important battle of any Argentinian midterm – President Alberto Fernández and Vice President Cristina Kirchner found someone equally close to both of them to lead the ticket: Victoria Tolosa Paz, one of the most vocal defenders of the administration on Argentinian TV over the last two years, with a history of working on multiple social programs during the first Kirchnerite decade.

Ms. Tolosa Paz’s nomination is a sign that the biggest stakeholders in the ruling coalition are unwilling to risk internal divisions again, after the three consecutive losses that Cristina Kirchner’s candidates suffered between 2013 and 2017, when Peronism ran divided.

The same can’t be said of the Juntos opposition coalition which, though still formally unified, had a very heated year of clashes between hawks...