A Balanced Presidential Debate

ARGENTINA - In Brief 16 Nov 2015 by Esteban Fernández Medrano

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Yesterday’s presidential debate between Scioli and Macri ended up being relatively balanced, even though online polls indicate a favorable bias in favor of the opposition candidate. The debate is therefore unlikely to have generated a land-slide shift in voter’s preferences, leaving the impression that Macri has good chances of winning on the 22nd. This said, it still underlined some personal and strategic characteristics that might be worth pointing out. The debate showed a more than usual emphatic Scioli, in clear contrast to his traditional calm way of addressing the press or the public. In line with the polls, that hint an adverse result for him in the ballotage, he was perceived as somewhat more nervous than Macri. In fact, throughout the debate, which had very strict speaking times, Scioli had a hard time complying with those rules. In several occasions he was requested by the moderatos to stop speaking. Yet, despite that he lost his calm in some parts of the debate (in particularly in the beginning when he started attacking Macri with some strength), he maintained a relatively clear and simple (and populist) message. He presented himself as the candidate who would protect the voter from what he expected would be Macri’s “savage economic adjustment”. In his words: devaluation, strong import competition in an open economy, cuts in subsidies and less state presence. Leaving aside the economic contradiction of the first to points (as in other cases), in contrast to his criticism, Scioli implicitly presented himself as the continuity of the Kirchner´s economic program. In fact, the only moment he made some attempt to differentiate himself from the Kirchner´s governme...