SUBSCRIBERS EXCLUSIVE
Votes are held this Sunday and the governor is singled out for his relationship with the powerful Sena clan. The opposition asked to postpone the primaries.
With the province shocked by the disappearance of Cecilia Strzyzowski, Chaco votes this Sunday in the PASO to elect governor. The nationwide escalation of the case and the links of the Peronist president Jorge “Coqui” Capitanich with the family of the most important social leader in the Emerenciano Sena province – accused of the femicide – altered the end of the campaign and uncertainty grows about how it will impact at the polls.
Almost a million Chaco residents must vote to choose the candidates from each space that will compete in the general election on September 17. There are 10 applicants among eight fronts.
Capitanich is in his fourth term and is expected to prevail comfortably in the official internal Chaco Front against Ismael Walter Espinoza.
Although He has three other Peronist contenders who face him on the outside and “fish” for votes in the same electorate. Among them, the current mayor of Resistencia, Gustavo Martínez, who was Capitanich’s running mate in 2015 when he ran for Resistencia’s community chief. He is now running for governor by the Current of Renewed Expression (CER).
The former governor, former minister of Capitanich and current ambassador to Paraguay, Domingo Peppo; and the vice governor of Capitanich for six years and interim governor while he was Cristina Kirchner’s chief of staff, Juan Carlos Bacileff Ivanoff.
But the main competition is on the front of Together for Change, which presents two lists: businessman Juan Carlos Polini, owner of a regional pharmacy chain, agricultural and cotton producer with the “Order and Work” list, which received support of the president of radicalism and governor of Jujuy, Gerardo Morales. Internally, he faces provincial legislator Leandro Zdero for “Chaco Cambia”, who had the support of the PRO presidential candidate, Patricia Bullrich.
Two liberal options are also presented: Alfredo “Capi” Rodríguez for “La Libertad Avanza”, Rubén Galassi of “Libertarios en Acción”. The left postulates Cesar Germán Báez, from the Partido Obrero.
The previous electoral traversed by the Cecilia case
The case of Cecilia Strzyzowski is shocking because of the chilling hypotheses that are being handled and because of the political power of the main defendants: the most important social leader of the Emerenciano Sena province, his wife and his son.
“The next march has to be at the polls, so that no one stays at home. Say no to impunity, the only way is with your vote,” said Gloria, Cecilia’s mother days ago, and even asked the president Alberto Fernández that “the province be intervened because Justice is not independent”.
Capitanich – best man at the wedding of the Sena, allies of his government, even prefaced Emerenciano’s book – was in charge of marking distance from the piquetero, who was running this year for provincial legislator in a collector attached to his candidacy for governor. But the Electoral Tribunal removed it at the request of the space.
“I want to remember that they were not with us in the 2019 elections. They decided to participate in this space as other spaces respectfully do. The Chaqueño Front automatically made the decision to exclude the people involved, because we are assisted by an ethic of service of political action”, declared Capitanich in an atypical act of closing the campaign.
Asked if they expect a blow at the polls, close to Capitanich they indicated: “We do not think about that because for us the pain of the family and the life of a person do not go through those lanes. We are always on the side of the victim and sure that justice will be done. As a State, we were there from the beginning and we will continue to be there, accompanying the victim’s family from the corresponding springs.”
The opposition also spoke about the issue at the end of the campaign. In Polini’s act, Gerardo Morales stated that “Cecilia’s disappearance is the consequence of a parallel State with characters who manage public money without control and get rich.”
Leandro Zdero announced that he was “categorically suspending campaign events” and showed up at the march this Wednesday for the disappearance of Cecilia.
In JvC they do believe that the situation will impact Capitanich in the STEP – “at least 5 or 6 points less” – and that in this first instance and in the sum of candidacies they could tie or surpass him.
