Local election a bad omen for Fernández in Argentina

By Ignacio Portes

A gubernatorial election in Corrientes Province wouldn’t ordinarily make that much noise outside of northeastern Argentina. But the shooting of a provincial Peronist lawmaker last Thursday — followed by a landslide anti-Peronist victory on Sunday — have turned Governor Gustavo Valdés’ re-election into a story of significant national interest.

With 99.5 percent of ballots counted, Mr. Valdés — a Radical Party politician with backing from other non-Peronists, including former President Mauricio Macri’s PRO party — secured a staggering 77 percent of the vote, a rarely-seen figure in almost any Argentinian election.

With only two weeks to go before the