By Michael Soltys, Senior Editor of Buenos Aires Herald.

Even if the same surname will be ruling Corrientes for the first dozen years of this century, Sunday’s gubernatorial runoff between Radicals Ricardo and Arturo Colombi was anything but the cosy alternation between the two cousins in 2005 when the former made way for the latter. The final outcome was no contest with the once and future governor Ricardo Colombi winning five votes for every three for his cousin (250,000 to 150,000) in a low turnout of some 60 percent — indeed Arturo Colombi’s 37.5 percent in the runoff amounted to barely 10,000 more votes than the 30 percent of Peronist Senator Fabián Ríos in the first round.

Nor can this lopsided result be considered a surprise with everything working against sitting governor Arturo Colombi quite apart from the global downturn electorally afflicting most incumbent administrations worldwide (look at Greece on the same day). Firstly, pro-Kirchner Radicalism is wildly out of fashion (neither cousin courted Kirchner support but Arturo was more tagged if only because he began his term as a pro-Kirchner Radical while Ricardo did not and because his main national ally Julio Cobos remains the vice-president of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner) — this family feud was also something of al Radical primary with the consistently anti-Kirchner Radical trunk under party chairman Gerardo Morales winning the day. Secondly, the charges of corruption against the incumbent administration were more or less confirmed, first by the arrest of the governor’s private secretary Diego Mosquera for astronomically increasing his personal wealth and then (far more dramatically) by the suicide only last Friday of Hernán González Moreno, the young businessman in charge of distributing public advertising who also faced accusations of embezzlement. Thirdly, the Ríos vote was never going to go to an associate of Cobos who is widely perceived as a traitor in government circles.

Like many inland provinces, Corrientes seems unable to break out of a poverty-stricken feudalism with the difference that its politics seems more dynastic than most — after being ruled by a Romero Feris brother for almost every year in the 1983-2001 period, the succession of Colombi cousins now continues. The last two elections might contrast — the smooth alternation of 2005 being replaced by a ferocious clash when Arturo welshed on that alternation and sought re-election — yet everything remains in the family. But if a Kirchner could replace a Kirchner nationally in 2007, why any surprise about a Colombi following a Colombi in Corrientes now?