My first five trips to Argentina were all during, or just after, elections. I photographed the posters above on my first visit, during its 2003 Presidential election.
Eva Perón was supposed to be a reason to vote for Carlos Menem, pictured below.
Exactly why a woman who’d been dead for 51 years should make people want to vote for a corrupt has-been plastic surgery victim was not readily apparent to me. Menem was in the Peronist Party, which Evita’s husband had founded, but that begged the question: what did Peronism stand for? It seems to be any number of things.
Menem actually topped the poll with 24% of the vote, and was due to run-off in a second ballot against Nestor Kirchner, another Peronist. But he withdrew, perhaps because a lot of people were prepared to support anyone but him, in the same way that many French voters recently turned to Emmanuel Macron to stop Marine Le Pen getting elected. Thus began the Kirchner Dynasty…
Argentina is having more elections next month. I’ll be going back there a couple of weeks later…
