7 out of 10 poor people live in the interior of the country

The electoral campaign is dominated by candidates from the City of Buenos Aires and Great Buenos Aires. This occurs in a context of unprecedented concentration of public funds at the central government, being most of them spent on the City and Great Buenos Aires. However, severe deprivation hits much harder inside the country.  This is a costly contradiction that helps dodge important issues on the electoral debate, like the highly regressive economic subsidies.

The electoral campaign is characterized by a lack of content and many self-praise and ironic disqualifications to opposing candidates. From the social point of view, this behavior is paradoxical given the enormous amount of distortions that condition the future of the country. The consequence is to spare the opportunity to address truly important issues, something that in mature democracies is the centerpiece of the debates in the electoral campaigns.

Although elections are nationals, a predominant characteristic of this campaign is that the discussion and media communication is monopolized by the City of Buenos Aires and Greater Buenos Aires candidates. This naturally leads to the prominence of the views and interests of the metropolitan region at the expense of the rest of the country.

The distortion associated to this electoral phenomenon is made explicit when considering, for example, the geographic distribution of poverty. According to INDEC official data, the country’s poorest households are distributed according to the following regional arrangement:

· 3% of the poorest households are located in the City of Buenos Aires and another 26% live in Great (suburban) Buenos Aires

· 32% live in the provincial capitals of the interior of the country and Rosario City

· 39% live in small towns and villages within the provinces of the interior of the country.

This official data shows that, from the total number of poor households, 71% are located in the interior of the country, either in the capital city of a province or in small towns or villages within the provinces. Nevertheless, the electoral debate is monopolized by politicians belonging to the City of Buenos Aires and Great Buenos Aires. This contradiction’s main consequence is that central issues that affect the quality of life of many argentines living in the interior in conditions of poverty and vulnerability greater than the metropolitan region are not properly treated.

A concrete example of this contradiction rises when addressing inflation. Among the candidates belonging to the City of Buenos Aires and Great Buenos Aires, it’s almost unanimous the questioning to the massage of the consumer’s price index and the refusal to continue eroding the household’s purchasing power through inflation. However, almost nothing is said about the origins of inflation which are easy money printing associated with an enormous fiscal deficit caused mainly by economic subsidies, subsidies that in 2013 will reach a sum of AR$140 billion. Even less disputed is the fact that these subsidies are spent mainly for the benefit of the City and Great Buenos Aires, through energy subsidies (55%), transport subsidies (28%) and financing the deficit of nationalized companies (14%).

Talking about inflation without questioning economic subsidies is a gross hypocrisy. Because the concerns about poverty are constantly highlighted but the economic subsides, either through action or omission, mainly go in favor to the City of Buenos Aires and Great Buenos Aires. Being honest about inflation requires honesty about the artificially low public service tariffs being paid by the citizens of the City of Buenos Aires and Great Buenos Aires. Otherwise, the absurdity for the people living in the interior of the country will continue, given that they have to pay high taxes, the full cost of their public services and face higher inflation in comparison to the inhabitants of the City of Buenos Aires and Great Buenos Aires.

The citizens that live in the interior of the country is put through under the so-called and always denied “economic adjustment”. They are suffering high inflation and are receiving crumbs from the subsidies benefits, which are the main cause of inflation. If these issues are not debated to demonstrate the unsustainability of polices implemented in recent years, there is no chance to launch any process of sustained and inclusive development for the whole inhabitants of the country.