Mark P. Jones, "Alberto Wertilneck Set to Return as Govenor of the Vaca Muerta’s Rio Negro Province" (Houston: Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, February 24, 2023).
Most observers of Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale play will be focused on the April 16 gubernatorial election in the province Neuquén which accounts for the lion’s share of the Vaca Muerta shale play’s oil and natural gas production. However, on that same day a second gubernatorial election will take place in the neighboring province of Río Negro, one of four provinces whose territory contains a portion of the Vaca Muerta (the other two being La Pampa and Mendoza).
Río Negro presently produces 4% of Argentina’s petroleum and 3% of its natural gas as well as plays a prominent role in transporting the Vaca Muerta’s production to market. Due to current and projected investments, oil and natural gas production in Río Negro is expected to continue to grow over the course of the current decade.
Under Argentina’s federal constitution, the provincial governments play a prominent role in regulating the investments and operations of oil and natural gas companies within their respective boundaries. On April 16 Río Negro will elect a governor via a single plurality vote along with 46 members of a unicameral provincial legislature using proportional representation, with 24 members elected from eight three-member districts and 22 elected from a province-wide district.
Nine candidates are running for governor, although one of these candidates, national senator Alberto Weretilneck, is a virtual lock to win. In 2011 Weretilneck was elected as lieutenant governor on a ticket with the Peronist gubernatorial candidate Carlos Soria. Less than a month after Soria was sworn in as governor he was murdered by his spouse, with Weretilneck assuming the governorship in January of 2012. Weretilneck was re-elected in 2015, and, in 2019, when he was prevented from running for a second immediate re-election under the Río Negro Constitution, Weretilneck helped elect his handpicked successor, Arabela Carreras. In 2023 Carreras is stepping aside and Weretilneck is again running for governor as the candidate of the Río Negro-based provincial alliance, Juntos Somos Río Negro (JSRN).
Like Neuquén, Río Negro allows fusion candidacies under which a gubernatorial candidate can be separately supported by multiple parties and alliances, with all of the votes the candidate receives from these different parties and alliances summed together for the purpose of determining the victor in the gubernatorial contest. In addition to being the candidate of JSRN, Weretilneck is also the candidate of the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR), which at the national level is one of the two principal members of the Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) alliance which forms the principal opposition to the governing Frente de Todos (FdT) of President Alberto Fernández. Weretilneck is also the candidate of the Nos Une Río Negro (Nos Une) alliance which contains a large proportion of the parties and actors who at the national level are part of the FdT. Both the UCR and Nos Une are running their own provincial legislative candidates who will be competing against those of Weretilneck’s JSRN.
National deputy Aníbal Tortoriello is arguably the most prominent challenger Weretilneck faces this year. Tortoriello is the candidate of the Cambia Río Negro alliance, which includes the other main parties which at the national level form the JxC: Propuesta Federal (PRO), Coalición Cívica, and Peronismo Republicano.
The portion of the national governing FdT alliance which is not supporting Wertilneck is split into two groups, each with its own gubernatorial candidate and legislative lists. Gustavo Casas, who directs the office of the federal highway administration in Río Negro, is the candidate of the Unidad para la Victoria alliance. Former national deputy Silvia Horne is the gubernatorial candidate of the Vamos con Todos alliance.
The final somewhat prominent challenger is Ariel Rivero of the Primero Rio Negro alliance, a former Peronist mayor and provincial deputy who now is the most visible ally in the province of Libertarian presidential candidate Javier Milei.
Four other gubernatorial candidates fielded by smaller parties and alliances are Gabriel Musa of the far-left Frente de Izquierda y de Trabajadores-Unidad alliance, Aurelio Vázquez of the far-left Movimiento al Socialismo, real estate developer Gabriel Di Tullio of the Partido Provincial Rionegrino alliance, and former priest and human rights activist Rafael Zamaro of the Somos Unidad Popular y Social alliance.
Weretilneck is a virtually assured of victory and a third term as Río Negro’s governor. The only uncertainties revolve around his margin of victory along with whether his JSRN alliance will win an absolute majority of the 46 seats in the provincial legislature, or if to pass legislation at the provincial level Weretilneck will need to rely on his potentially transitory legislative allies elected from the UCR and Nos Une lists which have Weretilneck as their gubernatorial candidate.
This post originally appeared in the Forbes blog on Feb. 24, 2023.
