Development: In general elections on 25 October Argentina’s opposition presidential candidate, Mauricio Macri, did better than expected, forcing a second round run-off with Daniel Scioli, the candidate of the ruling Frente para la Victoria (FPV, Kirchneristas) faction of the Partido Justicialista (PJ, Peronists), scheduled for 22 November.
Significance: In the space of 24 hours the likely political complexion of the next Argentine government – due to take office on 10 December – has changed radically. With 83% of the votes counted, Scioli led the presidential race with 35.7%, but his main opponent, Macri, did better than expected with 35.3%. The third-placed candidate, dissident Peronist Sergio Massa, gained 21.2% of the vote. As Scioli failed to meet the threshold for victory in the first round (45% of the vote, or 40% and a ten-percentage point lead over his nearest rival) there will be a second round run-off. Nothing is assured, but now Macri, rather than Scioli, must be considered the favourite.
- A six-hour overnight delay in releasing the full preliminary election results led some to suspect that the numbers stunned the government of outgoing President Cristina Fernández. Yet apart from some relatively minor incidents there were no claims of electoral irregularities.
- A run-off ballot had always been on the cards, but Macri’s numbers were much stronger than expected. Opinion polls had put Scioli’s lead at eight, nine, or ten percentage points, but in the end it was reduced to a barely-there 0.4%. President Fernández had rather reluctantly endorsed Scioli, the governor of the Buenos Aires province, because it was felt that he could deliver the votes in Argentina’s largest electoral constituency, a traditional Peronist stronghold. But in an unprecedented result, María Eugenia Vidal of Macri’s centre-right Propuesta Republicana party (PRO), swept to victory in the Buenos Aires province gubernatorial elections with 39.6% against 35.0% of the vote for the FPV candidate, Aníbal Fernández.
- The Cambiemos opposition coalition that backs Macri’s presidential bid also won the governorships in the densely populated provinces of Córdoba, Santa Fe and Mendoza. Massa’s Unidos por una Nueva Alternativa (UNA) coalition took Jujuy. The FPV retained a number of smaller provinces: one of its consolation prizes was Santa Cruz, where the President’s sister-in-law, Alicia Kirchner, won the governorship and her son, Máximo Kirchner, was elected as a national deputy.
- The first results indicate that the FPV has also lost its outright majority in the lower chamber of the national congress. With its allies it is projected to remain the largest single grouping with 116 seats, but short of the 129 needed for a majority. There will be a similar situation in the federal senate, where the FPV is likely to have 11 seats with the remaining 13 divided up among a range of other parties. Whoever wins the presidential second round run-off will therefore need to govern through a series of pacts and alliances, reinforcing the view that Argentine politics is moving towards the centre.
Looking Ahead: The outcome of the second round now depends in part on who Massa will endorse: much suggests that Macri and the opposition now have the edge on Scioli and the FPV. How hard-core kirchneristas, in power for over a decade, will react to this setback is also uncertain.
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