Governor Alfredo Cornejo confirmed that Mendoza will not suspend its provincial PASO primaries and that the open, simultaneous and mandatory primary system will remain in force in the province's electoral calendar.
The statement was made at Government House and seeks to close speculation about a possible change in Mendoza's electoral rules. Cornejo was explicit: Mendoza will have primaries.
The decision marks a difference from the national debate, where suspension or modification of PASO has again become part of political discussion. Mendoza, by contrast, ratifies the provincial mechanism as a prior stage for organising candidacies and alliances.
For the Mendoza government, keeping PASO means sustaining institutional predictability. The province seeks to avoid rule changes close to an electoral process and to preserve a system that shapes parties' internal competition.
The point also affects the opposition. If PASO remains in force, political forces will have to define candidacies, fronts and strategies within a known framework, with citizen participation before the general election.
Cornejo presented continuity of the system as part of a logic of political stability. In a national context of electoral reforms, party fragmentation and coalition realignments, Mendoza is trying to show itself as a jurisdiction with clear rules.
The ratification does not eliminate debate over costs, electoral organisation or the political convenience of primaries. But it does set the provincial executive's position against any attempt to suspend them in the district.
The main signal is institutional: Mendoza will not follow the path of a provincial suspension of PASO. The electoral calendar is projected, for now, with mandatory primaries and existing rules as the framework for competition.
