The fallout after yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to suspend the elections that were set to happen in San Juan and Tucumán provinces this Sunday continued, as the uncertainty around the new date for the elections remains. 

Yesterday, the Supreme Court’s ruling established that the reelection bids of governors of both provinces, Sergio Uñac (San Juan) and Juan Manzur (Tucumán) are unconstitutional according to both their respective provincial constitutions — article 175 for San Juan and article 90 for Tucumán — and the National Constitution.

Uñac addressed the province in a speech today, where he questioned the members of the Supreme Court, saying they are “disrespectful to provincial autonomy.”

“I kneel to no one. Let them take my candidacy away if that’s what they want,” said Uñac in a meeting with supporters in the San Juan headquarters of the Justicialist Party (PJ)

“We know that behind these things there are underground interests, which the San Juan people will respond to on May 14. I thought I had lost my ability to be astonished, but this surprised me with its untimeliness, with its malice, considering they had had the petition more than thirty days ago,” he said. 

Earlier today, Uñac asked the San Juan people to “go to vote en masse” in the elections for state deputies, mayors, and council members, which are “non-expressly suspended”, and said that this would prove that “we want to elect our authorities without limitations or constraints.”  

Meanwhile, the Unidos por San Juan party —formerly Juntos por el Cambio (JxC)—, announced they will appeal the decision of the State Electoral Board to call for elections in those other categories and “file a petition so the court will review their decision” of going along with the elections of other categories. 

“We believe the proper thing would be to suspend the entire election until the Supreme Court makes a final decision,” said Unidos’ governor candidate Marcelo Orrego. Oscar Cuadros, an attorney for the opposition coalition, said the Electoral Court “is violating Article #185 of the State Constitution, which indicates that the election for governor and vice governor must take place together with the one for state deputies.”

In Tucumán, Manzur said he will “abide and respect” the decision of the Provincial Electoral Board, which last night decided to suspend the elections in all of their categories.

“I am calm, these things happen in politics,” he said to Tucumán newspaper La Gaceta outside his home in Yerba Buena. 

“We are analyzing the situation, there is no final ruling yet. We need to wait a bit more,” he said when asked whether he would step down from the ticket he shares with Osvaldo Jaldo, current vice governor of the province. 

“There is an injunction, that’s all that happened, but sooner or later the Tucumán people will go to vote and once they are in the voting room, they are alone and free to choose,” he said later in Los Puestos. 

Other Peronism leaders and officials also came out to discredit the Supreme Court’s decision. 

Interior Minister Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro posted a video yesterday in which he labeled the decision as “irresponsible” and said that the court “exercises a jurisdiction they don’t have.”

The General Confederation of Labor (CGT) also stated their “strong repudiation” of the Court ruling, saying that it “compromises the rule of federalism and sets a serious institutional precedent”.

“This CGT confirms once again their commitment and conviction to mutual dialogue and respect as basic fundamentals of coexistence that promotes development, progress and social peace,” they said in a statement.  

On the other side of the spectrum, JxC presidential candidate Horacio Rodriguez Larreta celebrated the court’s decision with a Twitter post, where he wrote that “no one is above the Constitution, that’s the fundamental rule of our republic. The Court’s decision is the right one in a country that respects the rule of law. We must abandon once and for all the attempts to damage state electoral rules in order to perpetuate yourself in power.” 

Yesterday, within an hour of the rulings going public, former Republican Proposal (PRO) party head and JxC presidential hopeful Patricia Bullrich had tweeted “We stopped Manzur and Uñac’s reelection. They believe they are feudal lords and owners of their provinces.”

— with information from Télam