BA Cast - Mandatory vs. Voluntary Vote

I was recently invited by Daniel Karlin and Fernando Farías from BA Cast - The Buenos Aires Podcast to participate in a chamullo on whether voting ought to be Mandatory or Voluntary.

The Primaries

So Cristina Fernández de Kirchner came out well on top in the primary elections that took place on 14 August and looks to have set herself up for somewhat of a comfortable victory come the actual Presidential elections this October.

CFK obtained 50.07% of the votes, way ahead of her closest rival, Ricardo Alfonsín, the UCR candidate and son of the first democratically elected president post military dictatorship Raúl Alfonsín, who got 12.17%.

It's a tad cold

How cold does it get in Buenos Aires?

Well some of the coldest nights I’ve ever spent anywhere were during the three weeks I stayed in provincía just two hours outside of the capital city in Zona Oeste, where a poorly insulated house in open countryside made escaping the freeze impossible. The damp, eat at your bones, bitter cold was worse inside the home than it was outside; and that's enough to make battles with the weather more than tough wherever you are.

In small villages and rural neighbourhoods all over the province, that is the cold reality of winter during July and August for many of the seven million inhabitants of Gran Buenos Aires. In the centre of the city however, it of course does not get so chilly and you can generally guarantee temperatures of three to four degrees higher than in the countryside.

Volcanic ash and Bariloche

Ash from Chile’s Puyehue volcano continues to cause disruption in Argentina over a month since the initial eruption on June 4.

Flights at Buenos Aires airports Ezeiza and Aeroparque were again cancelled last week while provinces in the south of the country remain in a state of emergency.

Election time - Mauricio Macri seeks four more years

Lefty filmmaker Pino Solanas

It’s mayoral voting time in the city and the walls and billboards are splattered with the candidates’ posters for Buenos Aires Chief of Government (Jefe de Gobierno).

In its present format the position is a fairly recent one. It was created in 1996 following a reform to the Argentine constitution when the city of Buenos Aires was given autonomous status; thus the city’s official name Cuidad Autónoma de Buenos Aires.  

The Nation’s House of Congress is responsible for setting the limits of the city’s autonomy but there are often political and judicial conflicts where the line between nation and city gets blurry.

River Plate and the Copa America

A tough week for Argentine football was concluded Friday last with a lacklustre performance from the national team against Bolivia in the opening game of the Copa America, hosted this year by Argentina.

The game at El Estadio Unico de La Plata, which took place on a freezing night, followed the opening ceremony and saw Argentina luckily claw back from 1-0 down to draw the match.

But at least it was on the field problems which dominated the weekend headlines.

That was not the case when River Plate lost a decisive match on Sunday 26 June to be relegated to the second division for the first time in its 110 year history and off the field antics helped the event become international news as hard-core fans rioted to cause absolute mayhem.