Santa Fe province is holding primary elections (PASO for their Spanish acronym) today, amid infighting between two of Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) candidates. Minors between 16 and 17 will also be able to vote in provincial elections for the first time following a favorable ruling by the province’s electoral court.

The Santa Fe people will vote for governor, vice governor, mayors, legislators, and other authorities candidates for the September 10 general elections. 

There are 13 governor hopefuls who aspire to replace incumbent Peronist governor Omar Perotti. According to the Santa Fe constitution, governors can’t be re-elected, so they can only rule for one term. Their successor must be voted in the general elections with no second round.

In Argentina’s presidential elections, candidates need more than 45% of the votes or at least 40% with a 10-point lead to be elected in the first round. If none of this happens, the two most voted candidates go to a second round, which is not contemplated in Santa Fe’s constitution. This means that candidates can win the governor elections by a very small margin.

The provincial Security Ministry is carrying out a security operation during the day to ensure the safety of voters and ballot boxes, especially in Rosario, the biggest city in the province. The city has been suffering several insecurity incidents linked to drug trafficking in recent years.

A special security operation is being carried out in 11 Rosario schools that suffered threats and even a shooting in the last few months.

This election is the first time that minors between the ages of 16 and 17 can vote in Santa Fe’s provincial elections. In Argentina, they have been able to vote in the national elections since 2012 but Santa Fe’s constitution mandates that only adults 18 and older can vote. The electoral court made an exception and allowed for the so-called “young vote.”

Santa Fe is the last province to permit minors to vote in local elections, with all other Argentine voting districts progressively doing so since the 2012 law was passed. The province didn’t allow it on the grounds that it was unconstitutional, but last Monday the electoral court ruled that a new bill to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote wasn’t necessary because there is already a national law that allows it.

Two local parties presented legal challenges against the court’s decision, but not in time for today’s PASO. If the court rules in favor of those challenges, minors could be banned from voting in the province’s general elections.

The candidates

Four Peronist governor candidates are competing for a place in the general elections under the coalition name Juntos Avancemos. Perotti’s candidate is National Senator Marcelo Lewandowski.

The other three candidates are national deputies Eduardo Toniolli (Movimiento Evita) and Marcos Cleri (La Cámpora), and provincial deputy Leandro Busatto (Corriente Nacional de la Militancia), who is close to Chief of Staff and Unión por la Patria (UxP) vice presidential candidate Agustín Rossi.

Meanwhile, the opposition coalition Unidos para Cambiar Santa Fe, allied with the national JxC front, has three gubernatorial candidates: national Senator Carolina Losada, provincial Deputy Maximiliano Pullaro, and socialist national Deputy Mónica Fein.

Losada and Pullaro have JxC presidential candidates Patricia Bullrich and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta’s support, respectively.

A public rivalry between Losada and Pullaro has brewed in the past weeks after the senator accused the provincial deputy of leading a social media campaign against her. Losada even linked Pullaro to drug trafficking and police corruption, saying that he helped former policeman Alejandro Druetta, who is in jail for drug trafficking, to go “from a simple officer to dangerous drugs chief” in the force.

“[Losada and Pullaro] will have to apologize to the Santa Fe people for this circus, a senseless argument carried out by their porteño bosses,” Fein said.

If Pullaro is voted as the opposition coalition’s candidate, it will be another score for Larreta, since the Buenos Aires City mayor has given his support to governors elect Claudio Poggi, from San Luis, and Marcelo Orrego, from San Juan; and Leandro Zdero from Chaco, who was voted as JxC’s candidate in that province’s primaries.

If Losada wins the Unidos para Cambiar primaries, it would be Bullrich’s first national victory. This week, Bullrich gave a speech during a campaign event to support her candidate, with a focus on dealing with drug trafficking and crime.

The left (Frente de Izquierda y los Trabajadores), has two contenders: Partido Obrero leader Carla Deiana and former Peronist national deputy Gustavo Marconatto.

Coalición Cívica, which is a JxC member at a national level, decided to go with their own candidate, businessman Eduardo Maradona — distantly related to Diego Maradona.

The two remaining candidates are Partido Moderado’s Walter Eiguren and libertarian Viva la Libertad’s Edelvino Bodoira.

—with information from Télam.