The extortion of polarization

The search for a political center has returned to Argentina, this time through a gathering of moderate leaders at the Usina del Arte in La Boca. Convened by Jorge Macri's government for a conference on municipal governance, the event served as a test of the idea that an orphaned electorate is looking for projects and candidates outside the extremes.

Argentina's political system has changed repeatedly since 1983. The Alfonsín-Luder election produced a textbook two-party contest, and the same basic division returned in 1989 through Peronist and Radical fronts. In the mid-1990s, a centrist alternative emerged from dissidents within Peronism and non-Peronism. FrePaSo won five million votes for the Bordón-Chacho presidential ticket in 1995.

In the 21st century, the contest took the form of what Jesús Rodríguez has called an imperfect two-coalition system. Jorge Capitanich describes it as a duality of flexible, shifting opposition coalitions. That arrangement tested party leaders and their voters in 2023. The leadership failed, the article says, through poor diagnosis and even poorer candidate selection. Javier Milei won the runoff, but the two political families survived, retaining their voter loyalty in 2025: 41% for non-Peronism and 34% for Peronism.

The article sees this electorate as the reservoir from which a centrist option could emerge and relieve voters from what it calls the extortion of polarization. Within the Peronist world, that assumption shapes Axel Kicillof's strategy. He keeps his distance from Cristina Kirchner's most extreme faction, believing it divides Peronism and limits his growth and alliances ahead of a presidential election that would likely go to a runoff.

Kicillof appears to be calculating that losses from breaking with Cristina could be offset by support from Peronists and independents who would vote for neither Cristina nor her allies, but would not move to the center-right. Yet the article says his distance from her risks making him look afraid. It argues that he should project ambition and the excitement of victory, but instead has acquired the image of a resilient victim. The article also criticizes the government's renewed use of the Malvinas issue, describing it as a familiar move by administrations with weak legitimacy and insufficient electoral support.