Last Sunday we had the Argentine primary elections (PASO for their Spanish acronym) with a plethora of electoral phrases and terminology coming up even before the vote took place. In reading Argentine news stories, our intern Molly read the term carancheo electoral — evoking politicians swooping down like vultures to make the most of a situation to garner more votes. In searching for the origins of the term, búnker político is apparently a Spanish term for an extreme right-wing group resistant to political change toward the end of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco’s regime. We ended up going with “campaign headquarters,” which is a simple enough translation, but modern examples of búnker with that meaning seem to be exclusive to Argentine electoral coverage. Maybe now that electronic voting has been scrapped for October, we’ll recover that treasured moment of standing in a dark room alone with our decisions.

Source: Bueno Aires Herald August 21, 2023 08:01 UTC