Looks like the always fractious presidential elections of Argentina have given a decisive result this time around, with no need for a second ballot, at least where the nation’s top job is concerned. And the winner is…
Daniel Scioli, the candidate for the Victory Front (FpV), won the presidential election in Argentina today without needing a run-off, according to the MinutoUno news service.
After the polls closed at 6:00 p.m. local time, the wire service informed that the FpV aspirant had a more than three-million-vote advantage over his nearest rival, Mauricio Macri, of the right-wing alliance, Cambiemos.
The National Electoral Chamber stated that it would not give the first provisional results until 10:30 p.m. local time, but the media beat them to it by way of exit polls at all stations.
At the campaign headquarters of the Victory Front, the word was that no one would speak of results before 9:00. But the head of the Buenos Aires cabinet, Alberto Pérez, was more upfront.
“We’re satisfied by the extraordinary democratic day we’ve had, for the resounding victory of Daniel Scioli, and for the new governor of Buenos Aires province, who is Aníbal Fernández,” Pérez said, just after 7:00.
[…]
Aníbal Fernández, the FpV candidate for governor of the important province of Buenos Aires, also triumphed over María Eugenia Vidal, the candidate for Cambiemos.
The fortunes of 24 Senate seats, 130 in the Chamber of Deputies, 43 in the Southern Parliament, and the governments of 11 of 24 provinces will be decided in these elections.
Translation mine.
Scioli was running-mate to the late progressive president, Néstor Kirchner, whose widow, Cristina Fernández, currently occupies the presidential office. So in a way, this is just a roundabout passing of the baton. No doubt it won’t sit well with the gringos, or their vulture-fund “investors” who are still trying to get blood out of a stone nearly 15 years after the great millenial crash that followed on the heels of Carlos Menem’s disastrous economic “model”. For backgrounder into that, here’s a little Canadian documentary that’s always worth watching just for its own sake, but is especially relevant now:
Scioli’s opponent, Macri, would have taken things back to Menemism. A surefire disaster for Argentina, no matter what the IMF, World Bank, and bizmedia pundits say.
PS: And now El Telégrafo is reporting that there WILL be a runoff on November 22, and that the race was closer than originally reported. It being Argentina, all I can do is shrug and say bueno.
