The 2003 and 2005 Elections in Argentina: From Anomaly and Emergency to the Legitimization of a Government

This article describes the Argentinean presidential election of April 27, 2003, and the legislative election of October 23, 2005. Until the December 2001 crisis and since 1983, elections had taken place in a context of institutional normality and regularity. The author describes the economic crisis, the worst in twenty years of democracy, and the political crisis it produced. He argues that this first Argentinean presidential campaign of the twenty-first century was atypical compared with other elections held since the return of democracy: the possibilities of a first-round winner were minimal and a second round was necessary, so that this became the most contested and uncertain election in recent Argentine history; for the first time, the main parties did not present a single ticket, but were divided into various groups, and there was an unprecedented number of candidates-eighteen presidential slates were submitted, although only five had any real chance of winning; it was also the first time worldwide, a former president (Menem) who had promoted constitutional reform to introduce ballotage, ran for president, won first place in the initial round, stated his intention to participate in the second round, and finally announced that he would drop out; and the economic and social context in which the election took place was also notable, as it was perhaps the first time since the return to democracy that the Argentinean population had been so severely buffeted by a crisis at election time. Thus, the winner, President Kirchner, was forced to engage in institutional engineering and deploy all his political skill to ensure governability, and to work to consolidate political and democratic institutions. The author argues that although the president was clearly the outright winner of the legislative elections of October 23, the greatest winner was Argentine democracy. Not only did the country undergo an adjustment of its party system, but also citizens, who had earlier shown alack of trust in all political leaders, flocked to the polls on October 23, 2005, thus taking a vital step toward the consolidation of political institutions.