Buenos Aires Herald 
The Frente de Todos (FdT) ruling coalition announced that it has officially changed its name to Unión por la Patria (Homeland Union) for this year’s national elections.
The leaders of the different parties that make up the coalition decided on the new name, but continue to disagree about the electoral thresholds necessary for the different tickets competing in the primaries, set for August 13.
The central negotiations were held at the historical headquarters of the Peronist Party, or Partido Justicialista, in downtown Buenos Aires. The coalition congress which met to make those decisions is headed by Formosa Governor Gildo Insfrán.
According to Télam, several meetings and last-minute telephone communications are taking place between the different political forces that make up Unión por la Patria. A few hours before the deadline for the registration of coalitions, the main discussion is still about electoral thresholds.
While Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s faction and Economy Minister Sergio Massa’s party, the Frente Renovador (Renewal Front) want the electoral threshold to be 40% in order for candidates to be part of the coalition’s ticket after the primaries. Meanwhile, the sector led by presidential hopeful and Ambassador to Brazil Daniel Scioli —close to President Alberto Fernández— demands a 25% threshold.
“Even if they say you have to have two arms, I’m still going to compete,” Scioli said today — he famously lost his right arm in a speedboat-racing accident in 1989.
Security Minister Aníbal Fernández, who is in Scioli’s corner, said that a threshold that surpasses 25% would be “unconstitutional.”
“We are going to go to the courts to sort out this situation, which must comply with the law,” he added.
While negotiations are still ongoing, the Unión por la Patria Twitter account — the erstwhile Frente de Todos account— posted a thread with the renamed coalition’s general resolutions.
“Our country is at a historic crossroads. We have a unique opportunity to put Argentina on a path of economic growth with social inclusion,” they tweeted.
In the thread, they criticized former President Mauricio Macri’s record-high agreement with the International Monetary Fund, which the current national administration renegotiated in 2022 and is seeking to further modify. They also criticized far-right presidential candidate Javier Milei’s proposal to dollarize the country’s economy.
“We unite to recover economic independence and for the development of a federal Argentina. We unite to defend the Homeland,” the thread concluded.
—Herald/Télam
