If you only have a few seconds, read these lines:

• The peak of activity on Twitter coincided with the statements by the governor-elect of Buenos Aires for the Frente de Todos, who said he would be given a “devastated land” in the Province. 
• “Kicillof” was the seventh most mentioned word and “Vidal” did not make it to the top 30.
• Guillermo Dietrich, the Minister of Transport and responsible for the national oversight of the Juntos por el Cambio, was the author of the most retweeted message.

The candidate for the Frente de Todos, Axel Kicillof, won the elections on Sunday for governor of the Buenos Aires province against the governor María Eugenia Vidal, who was seeking her reelection for the Juntos por el Cambio. With 95.66% of the ballots tallied, Kicillof reached 52.28% and Vidal obtained 38.39%.

In this context, we analyzed the activity of Twitter users from 8 a.m. on the day of the elections and in the 24 hours following it. We registered 25,900 tweets, and the maximum number of messages posted every minute in this period was 160.

The highest peak of activity happened at 10:50 p.m., immediately after the speech by the governor-elect in the Frente de Todos bunker. “Those who won were the popular movements, the solidarity, and all this effort made in the whole Buenos Aires province”, he said. He then added: “The economic situation we have today after four years of the Macri and Vidal administration is that of a devastated land.”

Number of tweets about the elections for governor in the Buenos Aires province

The data refers to the activity on Twitter between 8 a.m. on Sunday, October 27 and 8 a.m. on Monday, October 28, 2019.
The numbers show the amount of Tweets in Argentina every 10 minutes.
Source: Elaborated by Chequeado from a keyword search and from the accounts of the governor candidates.

Regarding the hashtags used the most, the podium was led by #EleccionesArgentina (12.7%), #Elecciones2019 (3.7%) and #ElDestapeElecciones (2.9%, the hashtag promoted by the communication vehicle @ElDestapeWeb, coordinated by Roberto Navarro). In fourth place came #FraudeK, with 1.9%, referring to the fact that some users close to the Juntos por el Cambio denounced irregularities during the elections through the social network, similarly to what happened in the discussion about the national elections. It is important to note that Reverso described certain accusations as false, such as a video where false ballots of the current administration were supposedly distributed.

In addition to Buenos Aires and the “province”, 23% of the tweets included the word “governor”, 18% included “matanza” (La Matanza is the most populous and significant district in Buenos Aires due to its electoral weight and was mentioned together with “#FraudeK” due to the accusations of ballot irregularities in 3 schools), and 16% included “conurbano”. “Kicillof” was among the top 10 most repeated terms, while “Vidal” did not make it to the top 30 most used words. Mentions to both candidates may be positive, negative or neutral.

The most retweeted message was published by the country’s Minister of Transport, Guillermo Dietrich, who is responsible for overseeing the Juntos por el Cambio. In his tweet, he stated that “reports” were being sent by the election supervisors because some electors went to vote with identity documents (DNI) “in an older format than the standard”, which, according to another of his tweets, is not permitted by the Electoral Code. The post received 6,698 retweets and was bookmarked almost 10,500 times.

Tweet: We have received dozens of reports by our supervisors in the Buenos Aires Province, especially in Merlo, La Matanza, Malvinas Argentinas, Pilar and Almirante Brown, of electors who went to vote with identity documents in an older format than the standard.

In second place came a tweet by @PPTenel13, the unofficial account of Jorge Lanata’s program Periodismo para Todos, in which he criticizes the celebrations of those who voted for the “NarcoEstado”. The message reached 5,597 retweets and was bookmarked 19,520 times. Another tweet by @PPTenel13 came in fifth place, in which he referenced the “dwarf’s communism” (referring to Kicillof) and insisted on associating the Peronism with drug trafficking, in addition to highlighting Vidal’s “courage” to fight this crime.

In third place came the C5N journalist Juan Amorín (@juan_amorin), who posted at 10:44 p.m. that Alberto Fernández is the “new president of the Nation”; Cristina Fernández, the “new vice-president of the Nation”; and Kicillof, the “new governor of the Buenos Aires Province”. The tweet received 2,155 retweets and was bookmarked almost 12,000 times.

In addition, the most mentioned accounts on Twitter were: @PPTenel13; the official account of the governor of Buenos Aires (@mariuvidal); the account of the journalist Juan Amorín; the account of the economist Roberto Cachanosky (@RCachanosky); and, in fifth place, the account of Claudio Savoia (@claudiosavoia), a journalist for the Clarín and a panel member in the program Intratables, broadcast by the channel América.

* The Digital Democracy Room is a project of FGV DAPP in Brazil in partnership with Chequeado, Linterna Verde and Ojo Público. It’s goal is to monitor and analyze the digital conversations regarding the electoral context.

The analysis is available the website of Chequeado here.