Evita Is Dead; Long Live Evita

Sunday’s Argentine elections, for governors and congressional reps, were largely considered a snoozer (or a hot girl-on-girl Evita remake) in the non-Argentine press. But beyond serving as a “kind of plebiscite” on Kirchner’s rule (albeit one boycotted by almost 38% of voters in a country where voting is obligatory), it also created the first remapping of the party system in, well, decades. As Joaquín Morales Solá, a well-known political columnist for La Nación, points out:

“The historic Peronist and Radical parties together garnered only 20 percent of the national vote. That is, perhaps, the most pathetic sign that the old party system has crumbled. Until 1999, the numbers were exactly reverse: the two traditional parties, which sustained the old bipartisan system, gathered the 80 percent of the votes, leaving the remaining 20 percent to small forces of the right and left.”

Now before anyone jumps on me, let me note that I’m well aware that in an election beset with allegations of vote fraud, Kirchner’s winning “new” party, which pulled the rug (and votes) out from under the “old” Peronist party, really is the same one with a new label and a new boss, and the bigger loser is the Radical party, which has withered on the vine. But still, imagine if in the U.S., during an election riddled with allegations of vote irregularities, one faction of the Republican party took over, marginalized the rest of the party, and the Democrats went limp. Wouldn't that be bizarre?

Oh, wait, that happened.

[Photos: Cristina Kirchner above Chiche Duhalde]