Between Nobel and truce, voting ahead, a pact to regain trust
Between Nobel and truce
Peace made the news twice this week: with a Nobel Prize honoring the civic courage of María Corina Machado and an entire team fighting for democracy, and in Gaza, with a ceasefire promising a truce where there was only ruin. This is no coincidence. Peace does not depend on grand agreements, but on those who decide to believe in it when all seems lost. This week we saw that freedom is defended with conviction and that even the longest conflicts can open up to a truce when someone dares to declare that the war must end. The release of hostages, after more than 700 days of captivity, has brought peace to families, friends, and the world. This week's peace, freedom, and conviction show that the impossible can begin to happen.
Inés Gnecco
DNI 28.985.896
Vote forward
To genuinely win an election, you must be proactive. The obsession with stopping one person cannot be enough. It must be clearly explained what the proposals to be implemented are and what the path forward is to improve what has been achieved so far, building on the enormous sacrifice already made by the country without squandering it. Enough of bastardizing politics as a business, enough of ignoring honesty, enough of seeking pardons and hiding behind privileges, enough of profiting from poverty, enough of impeding progress, enough of promoting insecurity, enough of wanting to return to the past, enough of raffling off our future and that of our children, enough of resorting to infamous narratives, enough of those who have no proposals, enough of those who oppose change, enough of those who do not condemn corruption, enough of passively accepting lies and deceit, enough of those who irresponsibly promote violence.
A vote that reflects these principles is a vote for the future and is the antidote to destabilizing poison.
Eduardo Pizarro
A pact to trust again
Aristotle said that only an educated mind can understand an idea or thought different from their own without the need to accept it, something the President and legislators should practice, because democracy is understanding without agreeing, listening without insulting, and convincing without imposing. An intelligent mind doesn't feel threatened by different ideas; it observes and thinks. A strong democracy is based on the ability of its actors to live with contradictions. For 70 years, our nation's leaders have dug hundreds of dogmatic trenches, disregarding the fact that tolerating other people's thoughts is the essence of the Republic and its Constitution. That's how things went for us, and those disguised as supposed saviors of the country, who need no name, took advantage of it. Today, political forces are constantly worried about their potential vote percentages in the elections. They should understand that 100% of Argentines want the same things: the rule of law, education, healthcare, living in peace, imprisonment for criminals, and investing with confidence in the future. So, after October 26th, stop using your narrow-mindedness to crush others as you have been doing so far. We need good leaders to unmask those who pretend to be good. An Argentine Moncloa Pact will truly restore trust.
Matías Aníbal Rossi
Candidates
One characteristic of the electoral campaign that is drawing to a close is the unanimity of proposals. It's difficult to determine who's who, since the different candidates' main argument is the now-famous "we must stop Milei." They then propose increasing salaries at Garrahan Hospital, pensions for retirees, and defending public universities. As they have for decades, the left is clamoring to oust the IMF, and as a novelty, they are running carrying the flag of the State of Palestine. No one explains how to generate employment, wealth, or progress. How to improve the education system that produces 10- or 12-year-olds who can't read or write. High school students who graduate without understanding texts. At this point, they should be concerned about, and give their opinions about, the nearly 50 teachers who taught them for five years. With surgical precision, they have an obligation to explain how to reform the tax system and adapt labor laws to the age of artificial intelligence. The answer is simple: they don't know how to do it. They hover over problems, don't come down to earth, and don't walk the streets of the country. They lack ideas. The barber who played Fidel Pintos so well, addressing the audience and referring to another actor participating in the sketch, concluded by saying, "You charlatan." Millions of Argentines conclude the same way after hearing, seeing, or reading about the mediocre candidates who will participate in the October 26 elections.
Gabriel C. Varela
DNI 4,541,802
Being a mother today
Giving birth is simple; being a mother is difficult. Because while it's true that a woman, long before becoming pregnant and then giving birth, already thinks about what it will be like to care for the human being she will bring into this world—a world where the rules of the game are no longer the same as those of her mother's time—today being a mother also means thinking like a father, because moral values have been disrupted in every way, and so this new mother must also be prepared to be a good father. It turns out that in this madhouse of today's society, roles are changing, as are the sexes. So, while it's true that there is only one mother, it's also true that there are several sexes. But I insist: what degree of courage does today's woman have in deciding to be a mother and facing the task of raising her child in a society that lives contrary to the societies in which our grandmothers and mothers lived? I want to tell them not to give up and to set an example, that it is also possible; just as a good father should, they should think like a good mother. Despite adversity, I say to you, young women, students of law, construction, commerce, housewives, etc.: woman, blessed is the fruit of your womb.
Very happy day.
Armando Torres Arrabal
Populism
In Argentina, the populist vote doesn't respond to historical memory, but rather to an emotional engineering that transforms dependence into loyalty. It's a kind of "electoral Stockholm syndrome," which describes how a political movement, corroded by corruption and mismanagement, continues to be perceived as a refuge. It's not magic: it's pure social psychology. The State, in its populist version, doesn't arbitrate: it protects. It promises subsidies, public employment, and narrative. In return, it demands loyalty. The logic is brutal: if the State gives me, I'll defend it, even if it steals. Thus, corruption becomes naturalized, clientelism replaces justice, and narrative supplants reality. Cognitive dissonance does the rest: "Everyone steals, but these people share." Voters defend their political captors to avoid facing the pain of deception. Kirchnerism, in particular, dominates the symbolic terrain: victimhood, epics, and propaganda. In provinces with structural poverty, votes aren't bought: they're rented, indefinitely. External attacks reinforce polarization. The pandemic revealed a selective morality: gross negligence and corruption were tolerated because "the State gives me something." Politics ceased to be a dispute of ideas and became a war of identities. Populism doesn't infect: it reflects inequality, weak institutions, and elites that shield privileges. The illusion is sustained by a narrow fiscal base: it extracts from the few to distribute to the many. But the account doesn't add up. It is financed by unfulfilled promises and imaginary enemies. It is a competition of impossible narratives that excludes ordinary citizens and erodes productivity. When the illusion is exhausted, populism faces its dilemma: moderate or radicalize. Sometimes it leads to authoritarianism. The question is not why people vote for populism, but why they continue to choose it, knowing the consequences. Because it offers what traditional politics doesn't: belonging and reparation, even if they are fictitious. While Europe, destroyed to the ground by World War II, rebuilt with less, Argentina deepens its decline with more. Populism doesn't plan or invest: it simulates and distributes. When the resource is exhausted, what remains is an institutional vacuum, a stagnant economy, and social resentment. Populism never ends well. The question is whether we will learn the lesson this time.
Jorge López Airaghi
lanacion
