When Argentines are angry at rising inflation and rising poverty, President Alberto Fernandez’s center-left coalition will find it difficult to maintain control of Congress. Mid-term elections on Sunday.

The latest public opinion polls show that the ruling Peronites lag behind the center-right opposition alliance by more than 8 percentage points nationwide. If such an outcome occurs again this weekend, Fernandez may lose his majority in the Senate and further complicate the government’s position in the House of Commons because it relies on independent support to pass laws.

In another sign that the government may face serious failure, protests broke out this week in the working-class district of Ramatanza in Buenos Aires, which has long been loyal to the Peronites and demanded “better The future” because a 40-year-old shopkeeper was fired. He was shot dead at his door.

“They complain that young people are leaving the country, but they haven’t done anything to make them stay,” Thomas Sabo, one of the hundreds of demonstrators, said of the government. “I want to leave [?.?.?.] They give me nothing here,” he said.

Ramatanza, with a population of approximately 1 million, has voted for Peronists in every election since the restoration of democracy in Argentina in 1983. In the September primary elections, the ruling coalition performed 19 percentage points higher than the opposition parties in nearby areas. As prices soar and wages fail to keep up, support for the government is waning.

Ignacio Labaqui, a senior analyst at Medley Global Advisors, said that once the voting results come out, the bigger question is whether the Fernandez government will “solve the serious imbalances facing the Argentine economy” on Monday, including high state subsidies and fiscal deficit financing through printing money, or Dedicated to a famous tango song “Endurance and Past”.

In Argentina, voting is mandatory, but there are few fines for non-compliance, and the turnout rate has been declining in recent years. Sunday’s election will show the strength of the opposition in advance, as it is preparing for the presidential election two years later. Half of the House of Commons and one-third of the Senate will be renewed this weekend.

The popular mayor of Buenos Aires, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta (Horacio Rodríguez Larreta) wants his allies in the capital and surrounding Buenos Aires to achieve a clear victory , And the province of Buenos Aires has nearly 40% of voters, which will make him the favorite game to lead the opposition in 2023.

To quell public anger before the vote, the government stepped up the Covid-19 vaccine campaign, increased social spending and frozen the prices of more than 1,400 household items.

However, according to the latest official data, price controls have failed to curb inflation, with an inflation rate of 52.1%. The poverty level has risen. By the first half of 2021, about 40.6% of Argentines are living in poverty, higher than the 35% when Fernandez took office.

In recent weeks, as Argentines bet that the government will be forced to depreciate the peso, the value of the dollar in the parallel market has soared to almost twice its official level. Economy Minister Martin Guzman has insisted that this will not happen.

Companies accused the government of scaring away investors. Strict import and capital controls hurt growth. Net foreign exchange reserves are declining, coupled with limited access to international markets, the central bank’s balance sheet has deteriorated sharply this year.

There is growing concern that Buenos Aires will not be able to compete with International Monetary Fund Re-arranged $44 billion in debt, most of which will mature next year and 2023. The government said there was no money to pay.

Argentine economist Eduardo Levy Yeyati observed that the government has nowhere to go: “Peronists know that the financial crisis is the end of government,” he told the Financial Times.