We had a bad brush with the Argentine political system last night… we were denied alcohol on a Saturday night because of the Buenos Aires mayoral election.
As typical with political entities they inflate their own self-importance while their silly ideas, and attempts to control people, backfire… In this case, everyone, except for the uninformed (like us) and those who do not have the resources to get out, leaves town (the ban does not affect the rest of the country) during the election weekend and therefore do not participate in the vote. So, essentially the lowest common denominator decides the election… [Actually, we've read that there's another round of voting so that the booze hounds can be included and that voting is mandatory... that being the case, what's the point of the ban?]
We discussed this with a taxi driver and he explained how the entire city suffered from the economic blackout caused by the alcohol ban…
Of course, the justification is that everyone is to be sober when voting, and that they take the election event seriously. We would plead the opposite. Booze should be half price, to wash away the misery of voting… But we digress.
This may well be a long-standing tradition in Argentine politics, but we think it stinks.
Notice how we become more belligerent without our liquor, dear reader? That’s why Prohibition didn’t work…



3 comments
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June 24, 2007 at 5:12 pm
matteo
Not sure who “the lowest common denominator” would be since voting is mandatory for city residents… Anyhow, Buenos Aires-Capital Federal is considered the commerce engine of South America and functions as an autonomous entity. The election for the mayor of Capital Federal will impact the laws regulating foreign investment, tax laws on foreigners (reference recent capital gains developments in Uruguay), how much harrasment a foreigner will get from their local AFIP office when they go to sell their property, the number of police monitoring improving areas like Palero Soho, the desperate poverty 1/8 mile from Recoleta (and the crime throughout the city that comes with it), etc etc… Any foreigner with investments here should be watching this election closer than the upcoming presidential election. The president matters but Capital Federal does what it pleases.
June 24, 2007 at 10:31 pm
Editor
Hey Matteo,
This post was really just tongue-in-cheek… We don’t think the ban was really a big deal… it’s just that we didn’t know about it and went for our only night out in forever, and it was a fiasco.
But you’re absolutely right… and we’re going to look into these issues as best we can…
Regards,
Will
June 27, 2007 at 7:34 pm
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