As an exact thermometer of population movements, the “marine charter” appears in each election, a long form that orders electoral logistics, a map used to navigate circuit by circuit by the electoral authorities, prosecutors and even pointers, in charge of moving the apparatus. supporters.
The first data from the 2023 marine charter is that 3,050,212 Cordoba men and women are empowered to vote on June 25, an increase of 5.5 percent compared to 2019, although with uneven population growth depending on the area of the province. That of Capital increased 2.5 percent; while in Santa María it grew by 16.3; in Punilla, 11.2; and in Colon, 10.6.
In addition to reflecting the flight of thousands of residents of the city to the suburbs, the data shows precisely where the provincial election will be defined: in that area that voted massively for Juan Schiaretti in 2019 and that two years later did the same with Luis Juez , head of the list of senators from Together for Change and, on this occasion, a challenger to Martín Llaryora, the mayor of the capital who, through the Metropolitan Entity, extended his radius of action to this zone of definition.
In the city of Córdoba and these three metropolitan departments there are 1,680,823 voters, representing 55 percent of the register.
Columbus and his marine chart
Considered a valuable asset, Together for Change gives high priority to Colón, a department that in the last four years added 24,098 voters, with an average growth of 10.6 percent. In 2019, Peronism had achieved 83,000 votes, and the two factions of Together for Change added 44,000. Two years later, the opposing franchise reached 89,000 votes.
In absolute terms, the town that grew the most in that department was La Calera, which increased its voters by 12.7 percent: it has 37,217. Due to the disorder of Peronism, Facundo Rufeil brought forward the municipal election to June 4, three weeks before the provincial one. The PJ will gather votes in two baskets; and Together for Change was associated with Encuentro Vecinal, an all or nothing game.
In the Peronist fleet, Llaryora recorded in his log that three of Columbus’s key mayors changed ships: Remigio Oscar Lauret, from Colonia Tirolesa; Marcelo Bustos, from Salsipuedes; and Myrian Prunotto, candidate for lieutenant governor of Hacemos Unidos and mayor of Estación Juárez Celman. All three had sailed with Together for Change.
Since 2019, the first location has grown 25 percent; the second, 21 percent; and the locality to Capital, 13 percent. The three towns have 34,051 voters.
The mayors of four other towns are Peronists: Saldán, whose census grew 13.3 percent, Malvinas Argentinas (11.1), Unquillo (10.7) and Río Ceballos (10.2). They add 70 thousand voters. Finally, Colonia Caroya, with 6.9 percent growth, contributes to Hacemos Juntos its mayor, Gustavo Brandán, as a candidate for departmental legislator.
Together for Change counts Jesús María as its own, whose mayor is “deloredista” Luis Picat; Villa Allende, although without a leader after the death of Eduardo “el Gato” Romero; and Mendiolaza, involved in a political turmoil that crosses both camps: there are wounded in Hacemos Unidos, although Together for Change appears more complicated for not having formed the coalition at the municipal level.
The Mendiolaza register is 13,902 and registered a growth of 16 percent. Jesús María, with 29,868 voters, had a minimal increase in his voters, with 1.3 percent more than 2019. Finally Villa Allende, with 32,971 voters, added 7.1 percent of voters. The candidate for opposition legislator, Benjamín Buteler, is from that city. In the last two towns, the municipal elections are detached from the provincial one, a disengagement from the strategy of pulling territorially.
Santa Maria, more than Columbus
The Santa María department, curiously named after the Genoese flagship, experienced a real estate boom in Anisacate, Malagueño and Alta Gracia, all three in the hands of Peronism, although with different local settings.
In Santa María, 15,589 voters joined and the register reached 111,346, a growth of 16 percent. Of the new voters, Malagueño contributed 3,565; Alta Gracia, 3,153; and Anisacate, 1,831. The growth of the first location was 23 percent; while the capital city, 7.
Hand in hand with new ventures, Anisacate grew 37 percent and reached 6,725 voters, displacing Despeñaderos and becoming the third largest town in the department. In Anisacate, Together for Change failed to unite. However, since the local election will be on June 4, Luis Juez should not be dragged along by the internal opposition.
In Alta Gracia, the date of the neighborhood election is not defined. However, Peronism puts Facundo Torres, minister and head of the PJ, as a tractor, who plays thoroughly with his candidacy for legislator.
Finally, in Malagueño the one that did not solve its internal problem was Peronism, which is fractured into several baskets and with the uncertainty generated by the “country vote”: an impenetrable bubble for local candidates.
In 2019, the PJ prevailed throughout the department with 38,000 votes, compared to 18,000 for the opposition. In 2021, Juntos harvested 36,600.
Punilla, adrift
These waves of migration to Greater Córdoba also reached Punilla, thanks to the real estate businesses in Parque Siquiman (with a growth of 39 percent since 2019), Bialet Massé (24.2) and Tanti (24). The main city, Carlos Paz, increased its census by 4 percent. In the entire department, 18,927 voters joined, 11.1 percent more than in the 2019 election.
On the Together for Change map, Punilla has “high priority”. He sends the math: in 2021, the opposition achieved 63 thousand votes; thousand more than Schiaretti had obtained in 2019, when he doubled the harvest of the fragmented opposition in Córdoba Cambia and Unión Cívica Radical.
Together for Change goes to sea with Walter Gispert as a candidate for legislator. At the helm is Gladys Moreno, extremely trusted by Esteban Avilés, head of Carlos Paz’s schiarettismo/llaryorismo; a candidacy that left Peronism uneasy, which seemed like an opportunity for Together for Change, which postulates judge Walter Gispert. This candidacy left one seriously injured: Mario Decara, who promoted his brother-in-law, Edgar Larrea. There is a third factor: Carlos Caserio, historical head of the PJ, decided not to put up a candidate for departmental legislator, so that the Peronist votes will not finally be divided. Ships should never be burned.
Capital and the “productive interior”, in decline
With 1,129,853 registered voters at 3,286 polling stations, the city of Córdoba represents 37 percent of the electoral roll. It is the impact of the sustained drop since 2019 when it represented 38.1 percent.
In four years, 28,203 voters joined, that is, growth was 2.5 percent; well below the provincial average, whose growth was 5.5 percent. The Census data will give details of where a significant number of capital residents fled, although it is assumed that they chose closed neighborhoods and new real estate developments in the metropolitan area.
In addition to the logical electoral weight, Together for Change and Hacemos Unidos consider that the city of Córdoba is decisive. For different reasons, both consider her key in the strategy: for Martín Llaryora, what is at stake is the plebiscite of his management; For Luis Juez, what is at stake is his “natural” ascendancy over the capital’s electorate.
In the campaign command of the opposing franchise, there is a number that makes the strategists dizzy: 402,192. These are the votes that Judge achieved in 2021 in the city of Córdoba as a candidate for senator of “the strongest version of Cambiemos”.
For this reason, Capital is of “high priority”, and they hope that Rodrigo de Loredo will definitely get involved in the capital leg of the provincial campaign, even if his turn is a month later, on July 23, in the municipal contest.
The “core zone” does not attract
As already mentioned, population growth is uneven and fragmented. While the Greater Córdoba and some regions of the mountains their populations increased notably (Calamuchita did it by 16 percent and San Alberto by 11.5), in the departments located in the “nucleus zone” they had growth below the provincial average .
In those departments, precisely, Together for Change is enthusiastic about obtaining results that consolidate an eventual victory for Luis Juez and Marcos Carasso.
In Tercero Arriba, for example, where Juntos por el Cambio leads the judiciary doctor Pablo Peirone as a candidate, and where the radical Marcos Ferrer has its own weight, the register added 3,115 voters in four years and increased 3.1 percent.
In Marcos Juárez, “cradle of Cambiemos”, the growth of voters was 2.4 percent, an increase in the register of 2,118 voters.
And in Unión – where Carlos Briner will fight for the departmental seat of Juntos por el Cambio, while Lito Bevilaqcua will do it for Hacemos Unidos – the register increased by 3,370 people, which represents 3.6 percent compared to 2019.
The three departments represent less than 10 percent of the electorate. In other words: the preponderance of the city of Córdoba and its metropolitan area shifts campaign priorities to the interior.