On Sunday, legislative elections were held in the province of Buenos Aires, a stage that, beyond its territorial and demographic importance, always sets the political pulse at the national level. A first reading of what happened in these subnational elections reveals some key trends: in most districts, incumbents managed to hold on to power, except in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, where Propuesta Republicana (PRO) suffered a resounding defeat that reshapes the city’s political map. This combination of continuity in several territories and setbacks in a strategic district leaves a heterogeneous balance for analysis.

Another factor that cannot be overlooked is the medium/low level of electoral participation. While Corrientes showed the highest turnout, the lowest rates were recorded in Santa Fe and CABA, revealing growing disinterest or disenchantment among citizens in some of the country’s most important districts. At the same time, a persistent difficulty of the national government is becoming clear: the inability to consolidate a party with real territorial roots, a deficit that limits its ability to project power in an organic and sustained way throughout the country.

It was precisely in the main electoral district, the province of Buenos Aires (PBA), where the political difficulties of the national government were fully exposed. La Libertad Avanza (LLA) was defeated by a margin of thirteen points against a heterogeneous Frente Patria (FP). While the national government won in only two of the province’s eight electoral sections, the Frente Patria prevailed in the remaining six.

A victory for Peronism or a self-inflicted defeat for La Libertad Avanza

Indeed, the government has shown an unusual capacity to provoke crises for itself that, although they have not yet affected fragile governability, could certainly contribute to its erosion if it persists in this course. Among the most notorious examples are President Milei’s speech at the Davos Forum; the so-called “Cryptogate” episode; the opening of the legislative session, which ended up highlighting the clash between the “engineer of chaos” Santiago Caputo and Radical deputy Facundo Manes rather than the presidential address at the beginning of March; as well as an electoral engineering based on the attempt to subjugate the government’s political allies through an offer impossible to refuse —“in the style of Vito Corleone in the film The Godfather.” And the list goes on.

A weak government, but at the same time with an undeniable hegemonic vocation, and a two-faced president who has not managed to resolve the dilemma between a prophet by vocation and a pragmatic politician by profession, could help explain this tension between the ability to build fragile governability and, at the same time, to inflict unnecessary damage on itself.

The pragmatic politician recognizes the limits and restrictions to carry out the mission, which leads the president to a (undeclared) negotiation scheme with different actors with veto power, while also forcing him to guarantee the necessary tools to push forward the ambitious presidential agenda through a combination of rewards and punishments (or threats of them). As people often joke on X (formerly Twitter): “Tell me you’re negotiating with the political caste without telling me you’re negotiating with the political caste.”

Milei the prophet/citizen, on the other hand, perceives himself as a leader destined not only to serve a presidential term, but to carry out a mission that goes beyond the narrow limits of any constitutional mandate. This prophet envisions a profound reformulation of the State, society, and Argentina’s traditional alignments with the rest of the world.

All of this has impacted the electoral performance of the national government both in the Buenos Aires provincial elections and in most of the contests held so far. With the exception of LLA’s victory in the City of Buenos Aires and in Chaco —in alliance with the ruling Radical Civic Union (UCR) of Governor Leandro Zdero—, La Libertad Avanza failed to prevail, or did so only partially, in the remaining districts: Buenos Aires, Corrientes, Formosa, Jujuy, Misiones, Salta, Santa Fe, and San Luis.

These results highlight the internal tensions of the government: an administration that combines structural weakness —lacking territorial, legislative, and technical support; without provincial governors or its own local leaders; without control of the streets in the hands of social movements; and with conditional support from the market and public opinion— with a hegemonic vocation that still fails to translate its narrative into a solid territorial construction.

Between isolated victories and resounding defeats, the government now faces the challenge of transforming that vocation for hegemony into effective governance.

^{*Machine translation, proofread by Ricardo Aceves.}