A Bald Choice

It´s an election year here in Argentina. The president is chosen in October, but a scant week from now on June 3 all residents of Gran Buenos Aires are legally obligated to vote for their mayor, or as the job is officially called for some reason, ´Chief of Government´.

The candidates are:

Jorge Telerman, the Socialist incumbent and favorite to win. His incredibly bald head can be seen on posters all over the city. Telerman is Jewish and an ally of Argentine president Nestor Kirchner.

Daniel Filmus, secretary of education and candidate of the Front for Victory Party. Also Jewish and an ally of Kirchner. Why two allies of the president should run against each other in a non-runoff election I have no idea.

Mauricio Macri, right-wing son of the owner of Argentina´s most popular football team, Boca Juniors, and therefore richer than God. Candidate of the PRO party, which doesn´t seam to be an acronym for anything.

Among those three, Filmus is the intellectual, but his professorial beard is no match for Telerman´s sly decision to make his striking ugliness into an advantage, viz:



It says ´Telerman, the only one who has the city in his head´.

Another ad of his shows someone dropping a ballot into his cranium. Should bald jokes fail, he can always go for a little Andy Warhol action:



Of course, it´s not all smooth sailing for this guy. Telerman has his job because back in 2004 La Republica Cromagnon, a popular Buenos Aires rock club, caught fire and killed nearly 200 people. This caused such an outcry that the then-mayor Anibal Ibarra had to resign and Deputy Mayor Telerman took over. The club´s owner, Emir Chaban, happens to be Telerman´s good friend, and he has been waiting for his trail for over two years. As Jose Costillo, candidate of the Socialist Left party, told me: ¨Fantastic. We finally get cooperation between Jews and Muslims and they unite to screw us all over¨.

Of course, no matter who wins, the streets will still be filled with trash, people will drive like maniacs, and the city will shut down whenever it rains. No candidate has emerged who has been willing to deal with those things. Yet.