IF YOU can’t beat them, join them. That seems to be the thinking of Mauricio Macri. On October 8th he unveiled a statue of Juan Perón, the army colonel who gave his name to what remains, more than four decades after his death, Argentina’s dominant political movement. What made this ceremony remarkable was that, of the three main presidential candidates in the election on October 25th, Mr Macri is the only one who is not a Peronist.

Argentina finds it hard to live without Peronism. Of the presidential elections since 1946 in which Peronists were permitted to run, they won nine, losing only two. They have governed for the past 12 years, under Cristina Fernández de Kirchner since 2007 and before that under Néstor Kirchner, her late husband. Ms Fernández’s candidate, Daniel Scioli, leads the opinion polls; Mr Macri trails by about ten percentage points.

Peronism is a brand rather than a party. Its official vehicle is called the Justicialist Party (PJ). To the extent that it has an ideology it is a vague blend of nationalism and labourism, expressed in the PJ’s founding “three banners” of political sovereignty, economic independence and social justice.

This has not prevented Peronist presidents swerving between radically opposed policies. Perón himself, when in power from 1946 to 1955, gained the lasting gratitude of Argentine workers by granting wage rises and paid holidays. But he also helped industrialists. He forged a coalition of labour unions, conservative provincial political bosses and nationalist army officers. It was the closest to fascism—of the corporatist, Mediterranean variety rather than the German version—that Latin America ever saw. Re-elected in 1973 after exile in Franco’s Spain, Perón tolerated violence as a political tactic, which contributed to a renewed breakdown of democracy and a bloodier military dictatorship in 1976.

In the 1990s Carlos Menem, another Peronist, pursued a very different course, opening the economy, privatising state companies and aligning Argentina with the United States. The Kirchners returned to economic nationalism and near-autarky, and extended welfare benefits to those thrown out of work by Argentina’s economic collapse in 2001.

Rather than ideas, Peronism embodies a consistent set of political emotions and practices. Perón declared in 1951: “The masses don’t think, the masses feel and they have more or less intuitive and organised reactions. Who produces those reactions? Their leader.” His second wife, Eva Duarte, touched the hearts of the masses. Ms Fernández has proved to be an accomplished disciple: she has ruthlessly pursued popularity by postponing inevitable economic belt-tightening, by exploiting her widowhood and by associating herself with Pope Francis, an Argentine who has Peronist roots.

Sergio Berensztein, a political scientist, says that today Peronism is “a conception of politics—the idea of power as an end in itself”. That makes it like Mexico’s PRI or Brazil’s PMDB, the permanent holder of the balance of power in Brasília. Its exercise of power is characterised by the strong leader and by control of the Argentine street. Almost all Peronist presidents have concentrated power in their own hands, brooking no internal rivals. Mr Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires province, has often had to bite his tongue to keep the backing of Ms Fernández. But nobody will be surprised if he breaks with her and many of her policies if he reaches the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace.

This exclusionary leadership, together with the ideological shifts, has contributed to Argentina’s notorious political and economic instability. It has also meant that Peronism itself has become increasingly fragmented. This is the fourth consecutive election that has seen two or three Peronist candidates. If that has not mattered, it is partly because the Peronists’ historical rivals, the Radicals, have all but disappeared, but mainly because the Kirchners had the good fortune to exercise power when high world prices for Argentina’s farm exports led to rapid economic growth, rising wages and a boom in middle-class consumption.

But now the economy has stalled. Whoever wins will have to devalue and cut subsidies. Mr Scioli seems tantalisingly close to the 40% and ten-point lead he needs to avoid a run-off. He is the favourite. But he is finding it hard to woo the middle class, which has fallen out of love with Ms Fernández. Mr Macri may have a chance, if he can only poach votes from the third candidate, Sergio Massa, a dissident Peronist. The Casa Rosada, it seems, is worth a statue to the founder of the most protean of political movements.