Argentina: Lights Out

ARGENTINA

Lights Out

A blackout struck Argentina in early June.

Almost 50 million people in Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay lost power in an area four times as large as Texas. A month later, officials told the Associated Press that “improper reprogramming” in a major transmission line was to blame.

For years, Argentine utilities didn’t increase rates. Repairs, maintenance and new investments lagged as the grid wore out, the New York Times reported.

Electricity prices have increased under President Mauricio Macri, a business-oriented conservative who took office in 2015 and now is seeking re-election in October.

But the increases were unpopular. Argentina is in deep recession. Inflation is over 50 percent. Unemployment is 10 percent. Amid popular discontent earlier this year, Macri imposed a price freeze, Bloomberg wrote.

It’s ironic that the electricity grid failed. Macri has had plenty of ribbon cuttings on his schedule in the months leading up to the election, reported Al Jazeera. He’s been building new roads, bridges, subway extensions, rail lines, and other projects in a bid to boost the country’s flagging economy.

“There is obviously a government decision to increase expenditure in public works above what was budgeted, at least during this time of the year,” Argentine economist Rafael Flores told the Qatar-based news service.

In October, Macri faces Alberto Fernández, a center-left Peronist who wants to renegotiate the South American country’s deal with the International Monetary Fund for $57 billion to finance its economy, Reuters reported.

But Fernández has chosen former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as his running mate. The wife of the late former President Nestor Kirchner, she took office in 2007 and lost to Macri in 2015 amid corruption scandals – but then won a seat in the country’s senate.

“During those eight years, she nearly ran the country into the ground, in part by playing to voter frustration by declaring war on a group of foreign lenders,” opined foreign affairs pundit Ian Bremmer in Time magazine. “Her government manipulated economic statistics. Graft in politics and business was widespread. Cristina faces several ongoing corruption cases.”

Argentines face a choice in the upcoming election, Bremmer concluded: They could stick to the hard reforms that have yet to pay off but could yield a much better quality of life in the future. Or they could go back to an “ugly past.”

Corruption investigators face uphill battles in Argentina, wroteAmericas Quarterly. Hunger is a major problem, reported El País, a Spanish newspaper.

There are a lot of problems that need fixing. Many hope that whoever wins in October gets busy with solving them, not politics.