ARGENTINA: COALITION LED BY CATHOLIC CHURCH

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 BUENOS AIRES 002451

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/02/2016
TAGS: PGOV PREL AR
SUBJECT: ARGENTINA: COALITION LED BY CATHOLIC CHURCH
DEFEATS KIRCHNERISTA IN MISIONES

Classified By: CDA Michael Matera for Reasons 1.4(b) and (d).


1. (U) SUMMARY: Misiones Province governor and Kirchner
ally Carlos Rovira's attempt to amend the provincial
constitution to allow indefinite re-election was soundly
rejected in an October 29 election for delegates to a
constituent assembly. President Nestor Kirchner had publicly
supported the effort and Rovira's defeat in the polls is
being portrayed by the media and the opposition as a serious
political setback for Kirchner. The margin of the opposition
victory, in the face of a concerted government effort to
secure votes, surprised nearly everyone. While all facets of
the opposition were able to unite in Misiones against Rovira,
it is doubtful whether this unity can be transferred to a
national level. The opposition to Rovira in Misiones was led
by the former Catholic bishop of the province Joaquin Pina,
leading some journalists and political analysts to speculate
that the Church may be the only institution strong enough to
pose a real challenge to Kirchner. END SUMMARY.


2. (C) Misiones Province governor and Kirchner ally Carlos
Rovira's attempt to amend the provincial constitution to
allow indefinite re-election was soundly rejected in an
October 29 election for delegates to a constituent assembly.
Political analysts have postulated that President Kirchner
has suffered a significant defeat via the outcome in
Misiones. President Kirchner's personal and public support
for Governor Rovira's proposed constitutional reform leaves
him with no way to shift blame for the defeat in Misiones.
In a meeting with Emboffs on October 31, a respected
political analyst and pollster shared information that
President Kirchner was angry with his wife for encouraging
him to support Governor Rovira so publicly when he felt he
should have stayed out of the issue. (COMMENT: Although the
defeat may be a disappointment or embarrassment for President
Kirchner, it is unlikely to cause him any significant
political damage. His behavior so far has been typical of
his reactions to prior situations that are beyond his
control: damage control by staying out of the public and
remaining silent. END COMMENT.)


3. (U) The opposition to Rovira in Misiones was led by the
former Catholic bishop of the province Joaquin Pina, leading
some journalists and political analysts to speculate that the
Church may be the only institution strong enough to pose a
real challenge to Kirchner. While all facets of the
opposition were able to unite in Misiones against Rovira, it
is doubtful whether this unity can be transferred to a
national level. The opposition's candidate list for the
elections was filled with mostly religious leaders, including
Catholic and Protestant ministers, who were widely viewed as
moral leaders free of any political baggage. These same
candidates were able to work together on a single issue,
which many analysts have said would be much more difficult on
the national level where myriad issues are at play. Pina
has, moreover, announced that he is done with politics and
has no plans to continue as a candidate on the local or
national level. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, head of the
Catholic Archdioceses of Buenos Aires, lent his personal
support to Pina's efforts, but has also discouraged any
official Church involvement in politics.


4. (U) The margin of the opposition victory, in the face of
a concerted government effort to secure votes, surprised
nearly everyone. The final results show that Rovira was
defeated by more than 13 points, an outcome that no pollster
publicly predicted. Commentators have speculated that voters
were reluctant to speak honestly about how they planned to
vote, possibly out of fear of retribution from the
government. The pollsters who projected a comfortable Rovira
victory have been accused in the press of either being very
bad at their jobs, or of having compromised their information
to meet the needs of their customers--in this case Governor
Rovira. The opposition group, United Front for Dignity led
by ex-bishop Joaquin Pina, had publicly denounced Rovira's
"fraudulent" campaign tactics and had feared the vote was
unchangeably fixed in favor of Rovira.


5. (C) COMMENT: The defeat in Misiones not only puts a halt
to the recent trend of changing provincial constitutions to
allow indefinite reelections, but also indicates that
President Kirchner's support is no longer all that is needed
to please the Argentine electorate. The lesson from Misiones
is that a motivated and impassioned opposition is capable of
rallying the necessary support to successfully challenge
President Kirchner and his political machine. Perhaps the
national opposition parties, such as Mauricio Macri's PRO or
the non-Kirchnerista Peronists, will be motivated to solidify
their loose coalitions to present a strong and viable
alternative to President Kirchner in October 2007. However,
it would be nearly impossible to recreate the specific
conditions that led to victory in Misiones on a national

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level, and we suspect that the outcome in Misiones will be
little more than a psychological defeat for President
Kirchner, whose national approval ratings remain well above
50 percent. END COMMENT.


MATERA