This article was automatically translated from HIBAPRESS, the Arabic version:
Hibapress
The Argentine Congress is preparing to eliminate electoral processes the primary election stage, which is compulsory under the Argentine law.
An extraordinary session of the Senate is summoned by the government on Thursday so that the legislators examine the suspension of the law governing the elections “primary, open, simultaneous and compulsory” (Paso).
This suspension thus enters the final stretch before its final adoption, the project having already been adopted by the lower chamber.
The Government has promoted this initiative, believing that the compulsory primary stage during the electoral processes produced has a significant impact on public spending due to the high costs of logistics that the State must mobilize.
The Paso is provided for by the electoral law in Argentina in order to decide between candidates from the same political party or a coalition of parties, so that only the victorious candidate officially represents his party in the final election.
All political parties and their candidates are subject to this procedure.
“Freedom in front”, who went to power, considers himself in good position to have the majority which allows him to suspend, for a year, the primary elections, which should result in the immediate by legislative elections of mid-term without primary this year.
The suspension of the Paso presents itself as one of the few reform projects which benefit from the approval of the majority and the opposition.
The Paso had been created by a law in 2009, under the government of Cristina Kirchner, and were organized for the first time in 2011. They took place about two and a half before the general elections.
According to certain calculations of economists, expenses devoted to electoral policy increased from 0.04 % of GDP in 2007 to 0.08 % in the following years, a doubling of the electoral budget.
