Argentinean politicians and social media

#ThisCantBeTrue

Argentina is a fantastic country: Has one of the world’s biggest waterfalls (Iguazú - which was selected as one of the seven natural wonders of the world), hosts a gigantic natural region known as Patagonia with breathtaking mountains and beautiful landscapes, and its country capital, Buenos Aires, is typically referred as the “Paris of Latin America” given its architecture and art-welcoming nature.

However, the politicians that run the country often contrast with its natural wonders. Similarly to other Latin American countries, Argentinean democracy is quite young (its latest dictatorship ended in 1983) and the country has yet not found a long lasting direction.

In this context, the past 20 years have been characterized by the rise and fall of multiple public leaders that have been trying (ahem, experimenting) with different resources to summon the masses. Social Media was not the exception of this practice, and has gained a particularly strong relevance in the past 5 years. Nonetheless, sloppy as politics and politicians usually are, many public figures have received powerful backfires for a relaxed (and often irresponsible) use of social media. This blog will highlight three of them.

#1: #LilaEscondida

Elisa (aka Lilita or Lila) Carrió is a powerful political person in Argentina. She founded a political party (ARI), worked as a congressman, and run for presidency four times (though winning none of them).

Most recently, she started a criminal investigation against another important Argentinean politician (named Anibal Fernandez) in which she accuses him of several felonies including being the intellectual author of a triple homicide.

After several accusations, Anibal started judicial actions against her too. Ms Carrio, in an “innovative move” decided to publish on Twitter a picture of her under a truck saying “Here I am. Hiding from Anibal Fernandez”:

The picture quickly became viral, and people started to make fun of her cropping the picture and placing Elisa in the crazies places:

More even, one person actually created a Blog on Tumblr called #lilaescondida where they compile many of the funniest pictures people made about this photo.

#2: Mauricio Macri & “sell roses to buy a bike”

Mauricio is arguably the current most powerful man in Argentina: Not only he belongs to one of the richest families in Argentina, but also he presided the country’s most important soccer team (Boca Juniors) for over 10 years, was Mayor of Buenos Aires for over 8 years, and currently works as President of Argentina (Since Dec 2015).

His presidential campaign strongly relied on Social Media: He wanted to show himself as a people person, and in particular, projecting himself as a person close to the poor.

To do so, he made a series of short videos in which he was simply interacting with people in low income neighborhoods.

Most of these videos went viral on social media, but for the bad reasons: People believed he was fake. People doubted how genuine he actually was. One video in particular, gained A LOT of attention because it projected him (at least for a number of people) as a sexual predator of little children. Here’s the video:

The video was supposed to present Mauricio as a person close to the poor: He talks to a little girl, who tells him that she is selling roses to be able to buy a bike. However, everything went wrong:

First, the girl (Sheila) was sat on top of Mauricio (position that was obviously uncomfortable for her). Then Mauricio uses phrases that (out of context) can easily be misunderstood, such as “dont worry, you will soften eventually”. And on top of that, Mauricio hugs the girl across the video a little too much for most of the audience.

The press heavily attached Mauricio for this spot, clearly backfiring his original intentions:

The news article reads: “Mauricio spots offer a sympathetic vision of the child labor and do not interpret the contemporary lack of sensitivity against pedophilia”

#3: Cristina Kirchner and “International Relations”.

Any blog around politicians and social media would be incomplete without mentioning Cristina.

Cristina reigned Argentina for over a decade. She was Argentina’s president between 2007 and 2015, but was also First Lady between 2003 and 2007 (so her marriage governed the country for 12 straight years). Before, she also acted as senator and congressman.

Her government style, for the better or the worse, was strongly marked by a rebel culture: separation from the more conservative powers (IMF, Paris Club, Developed Countries, etcetera).

Her marketing manner also followed a rebel culture: She offered few to none press conferences, and in contrast she heavily relied on Twitter as her preferred communication channel.

During her mandate as president, she was frequently accused that the high number of people that she or her party managed to summon for public events were due to perverse incentives: The attendants were not general people but militants from her son’s political group (named “Campora”) and they assisted to events only because they were offered a sandwich for coming - rather than actual conviction for the work she was doing.

One day, she found herself in China in an international seminar with hundreds of business leaders meant at promoting bilateral trade between the two nations. She then, had the fantastic idea that show her attraction power with the following original Tweet:

It LITERALLY reads: “Over 1.000 assistants to the event. Are they all from the campoLa? Did they come only because of the Lice and the petloLeum?”

The local and international press EXPLODED after this! It’s really RARE to see such an important mandatary expressing such an evident lack of respect with a clearly racist comment.

Cristina quickly responded to the press, again with another tweet saying: “Sorry, but you know what? there’s such an excess of the ridiculous and absurdity that the only way to address them is with humor”

Overall, Social Media seems to project the particular culture of Argentinean politicians in funny and sometimes painful ways. It is clear that the domination of this tool is yet on its baby steps. Will they master social media skills? Only the future can tell.