by Sorrel Moseley-Williams
Herald staff

In case you’ve been wearing incredibly dark sunglasses recently, or have only just arrived in town, it can’t have escaped your attention that a mid-term election is taking place tomorrow.
Posters have been pasted and repasted on billboards with various suspicious looking mug-shots peering out at you, the streets are littered with discarded flyers and publicity, politicians have been hogging the TV screens with last-minute rallies and voters are being encouraged to choose “list whatever number.” All of this means little to me. Despite having permanent residency here (oh yes I do Sr. Immigration Officer, I am not entitled to vote which may have something to do with not having a national identification document (it’s being processed, Sr. Immigration Officer).
And these aren’t elections affecting just the capital city but the whole country. Which means from a Get-Out-on-a-Saturday-night point of view, options are limited. To clarify, part B in Article 71 from Law 19,945, the National Electoral Code,  states that popular outdoor and indoor events, theatrical, sporting and any kind of public gathering that doesn’t involve the election, may not take place until three hours after the election ends. For the record, voting begins at 8am tomorrow and ends at 6pm, so only at 9pm will bars, restaurants, cafés and the like deign to open. If they feel like it.
Part C adds that any establishment that sells alcohol can’t open ç until three hours after the ballot boxes have closed and the reason for this, so I am told, is that voters don’t turn up drunk to make their mark and take an incorrect decision. My thoughts on that? Why not just hold elections on a week night when nobody will be planning on getting really plastered.  In the UK  general elections when we vote for a change of government traditionally take place on Thursday, and we still get to go down the boozer the night before and on the day.
Santiago Camaño from FlipOut! Bookings which represents various DJs, says:  “If the election was at a provincial level our artists could go elsewhere to play but as we normally hold regular parties on Saturday nights at Pacha, we had to move those to Friday this week. That’s the most annoying part, that we can’t even undertake a tour.”

BEAT THE BAN. Sadly, there don’t seem to be many feasible ways around beating the booze ban, apart from holding a private party and ensuring you’ve bought enough alcohol to fill the River Plate before shops shut
Plenty of foreign friends without voting rights will go round to someone’s house for drinks and dinner of some description, and plenty of invitations are flying round Facebook as the normal Saturday nights of mayhem are put on hold for a week.
However, one enterprising puerta cerrada specialising in south-east Asian cuisine, Cocina Sunae, is charging a cheap $30 a head for fun and grub. And funk club Makena Cantina Club (Fitz Roy 1519) is taking the election bull by the horns and will see what happens. Music wise, Fausto kicks off, and will be followed by reggae combo Banda cuenca with Cool Funky Night closing the evening’s events. Mariano Ramos, a sound technician at Makena, bravely says: “We will be opening as normal... and we’ll see what happens.”

LEAVE THE COUNTRY. One option is to head across the river to Uruguay and splash some cash  for a night. Not a single election is happening there and it’s an opportune moment to renew your tourist visa and try some Tannat wine.
Because most bars and clubs are unlikely to open their doors at all, the ones that do will be kick-starting at a time when you should normally be tucking into tea and cake.
To events will start a lot earlier, head to Lanús East for a hip-hop-athon at 5pm. The More Fayah dancehall, roots and reggaeton fest at Lithium (Hipóito Yrigoyen 3545) includes performances from Selektah Carlos Angola, DJ Pancho, DJ Fitos, Israel, Dankadesh, DJ Grobba, DJ Hernán Groove, Princesa, ElSanto and Marita Améndola.
Still out of town but this time in Vicente López, check out the LDD SoundSystem and DJs at Lo de Garone (Bartolomé Cruz 1250). This four-hour session kicks off at 8pm.
For something a little more cultural, the Emilio Balcarce Tango School’s orchestra will perform at 5pm. A free concert directed by Néstor Marcone, head for the Jorge Luis Borges auditorium at the Biblioteca Nacional (Agüero 2502).
And if you’ve got plenty of energy to burn tomorrow after a very quiet Saturday night, the club formerly know as Big One will be holding a matinée-style event with which Argentine teenagers are familiar. Club One (Alsina 940) will host a club afternoon from 6pm.
And what will I be doing tonight? The plan is to be tucked up in front of a log fire in Cariló, with a bottle of wine bought in the day, a movie preview and my three cats. Not very Saturday night, definitely not rock ‘n roll and very Saturday light.