Alberto Fernández has been elected president of
Argentina in a vote dominated by economic concerns.
The center-left opposition candidate secured more than the 45% of the vote
needed to win, beating conservative incumbent Mauricio Macri.
Raucous crowds gathered at Alberto Fernández’s election headquarters to
celebrate the result.
The vote was held amid an economic crisis that has left a third of
Argentina’s population in poverty.
Mauricio Macri had trailed behind his challenger in pre-election polls and
was trounced by the opposition in primary elections in August.
The incumbent president conceded defeat on October 27. Congratulating his
political rival, Mauricio Macri said he had invited Alberto Fernández to the
presidential palace on October 28 to discuss an orderly transition.
Alberto Fernández later told supporters he would collaborate with the
outgoing president “in every way we can”, according to Reuters.
With more than 90% of ballots counted, Alberto Fernández had 47.79% of the
vote, compared to Mauricio Macri’s 40.71%.
To win in the first round, a candidate needs at least 45% of the vote, or
40% and a 10-point lead over the second-place contestant.
Alberto Fernández will assume the presidency on December 10.
The vote was dominated by concerns over the economy. With nearly one in
three people now living in poverty, voters backed the candidate they thought was
best-placed to lead Argentina out of the crisis.
Mauricio Macri promised to achieve “zero poverty”, but things
actually worsened during his four-year rule. His supporters say he inherited a
broken economy when he came to power and needed more time to sort it out.
Alberto Fernández has vowed to play things safe financially.
Career politician Alberto Fernández
has caused quite a stir since he first appeared in the limelight of Argentine
politics some six months ago.
The former campaign strategist began
his bid for the presidency in May – something of a surprise as ex-president
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had been widely tipped to be the center-left
opposition coalition’s candidate for the top office.
However, Alberto Fernández really came into his own in August when he defeated Mauricio Macri by nearly 15 percentage points in primary elections, a compulsory vote for all electors which is seen is a dry-run for the presidency.
Former economy minister Axel Kiciloff and the former head of the central bank have also been charged.
Cristina Fernandez, who governed from 2007 to 2015, said the case was politically motivated.
She already faces unrelated investigations into alleged corruption.
Judge Claudio Bonadio said a total of 15 people would go in trial in connection with the case.
Cristina Fernandez is accused of ordering the central bank to sell dollars on the futures market at artificially low prices ahead of a widely expected devaluation of the Argentine peso.
This, the allegation goes, caused Argentina to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.
Cristina Fernandez is also being investigated over alleged corruption but the dollar futures case would be the first to reach the trial phase.
She won the presidential election in 2007, succeeding her husband, Nestor Kirchner, in the top office.
In 2011, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner was re-elected by a landslide.
Argentina’s President Mauricio Macri has pledged to assert his innocence when he appears before a federal prosecutor to explain his financial dealings.
An investigation began on April 7 after it transpired Mauricio Macri was mentioned in the Panama Papers, leaked files of law firm Mossack Fonseca.
According to local media reports, Mauricio Macri was listed as director of an offshore company in the Bahamas.
In a TV address, President Mauricio Macri vowed to prove he had done nothing wrong.
He said he wanted to co-operate fully with any inquiry.
“I know there are some people concerned about these allegations in the Panama Papers that have come out and involve me,” the president said.
“I want to say one more time that I am very calm, I have complied with the law, I have told the truth and I have nothing to hide.”
Mauricio Macri said that he had made clear in his initial declaration that he did not have any shares and did not receive any payment for acting as a director of offshore companies.
He said that on April 8 he would be submitting a judicial “declaration of certainty” so that prosecutors can see he is telling the truth.
Mauricio Macri’s office has insisted that he had no shares in the company in question and never received any income from it.
Argentina’s national tax authority and anti-corruption office will be asked to provide information to the inquiry.
Prosecutor Federico Delgado said he wanted to determine if Mauricio Macri had “omitted, with malicious intent” mentioning his reported role in the Bahamas-registered offshore company Fleg Trading.
La Nacion, one of the newspapers examining some of the leaked documents, reported that Mauricio Macri was listed as a director of Fleg Trading from 1998 until 2009.
He did not list the company in his 2007 financial declaration, when he became mayor of Buenos Aires or in his 2015 declaration when he became president.
On April 5, Mauricio Macri’s office confirmed that a business group owned by the president’s family had set up an offshore company through the law firm at the centre of the Panama Papers scandal.
However, the president’s office argued that because he had never received any income from it there had been no reason to mention it in the financial declarations.
Mauricio Macri campaigned on a promise to combat corruption.
Argentina’s government has announced a relaxation of currency controls.
According to experts, the move is likely to weaken the local currency, peso.
President Mauricio Macri hopes the move will boost exports and spark economic growth.
Farmers in Argentina have been waiting for the currency to fall before selling stockpiles of soybeans.
The official exchange rate of 10 pesos to the US dollar is not matched by a much stronger black market rate.
Analysts expect the official rate to weaken to between 13.5 and 15.00 per dollar, in line with the black market rate.
Argentine finance minister Alfonso Prat-Gay said he accepted the rate would weaken to “close to” 14.2 to the dollar.
Alfonso Prat-Gay also said Argentina was negotiating a credit line with international banks to build a credit line of more than $5 billion to replenish the country’s international reserves.
In a press conference, Alfonso Prat-Gay said: “The old system had killed the goose that laid the golden egg by restricting the growth of the economy.”
He outlined that exchange controls would end for all businesses who would be allowed to buy as many dollars as they needed.
However, he said, for the time being, ordinary Argentines would still face restrictions on the amount of dollars they could buy a month.
In response to concerns that there could be a steep devaluation, Alfonso Prat-Gay said the central bank had been given the right to intervene if the exchange rate fell too quickly.
Argentina’s ex-President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner used central bank reserves to prop up the peso.
But Mauricio Macri, who was elected last month and inaugurated last week, had vowed to change the policy.
Argentina has been plagued by financial volatility in recent decades with inflation running at around 25% according to private estimates.
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has made an emotional farewell speech to supporters in the capital, Buenos Aires.
The outgoing president urged people to take to the streets if they feel betrayed by the new center-right government.
Conservative Mauricio Macri, who won a run-off election last month, is due to be sworn in as president later.
Mauricio Macri inherits problems including high inflation and a low level of foreign currency reserves.
He has promised a new era of change and reconciliation.
Addressing tens of thousands of cheering supporters outside the La Casa Rosa presidential palace in Buenos Aires, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner defended her record.
“We believe in what we have achieved so we need to have a positive attitude to ensure that these things will not be destroyed,” she said.
“When you feel that those who you trusted and voted for have betrayed you, take up your flags,” she added.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is to skip today’s swearing-in after the two became embroiled in a row over the ceremony’s location.
It will be the first time since the end of Argentina’s military dictatorship in 1983 that a president has not attended the inauguration of a successor.
Mauricio Macri sought a court injunction affirming that Cristina Fernandez’s term ended at midnight on December 9.
During her speech, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchener joked: “I can’t talk much because after midnight I’ll turn into a pumpkin.”
Power will now be transferred to the new president by Senate Speaker Federico Pinedo, who is acting act as temporary head of state for 12 hours.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, held power in Argentina for 12 years.
She is revered by some Argentines for expanding welfare benefits, nationalizing some companies and introducing new civil rights such as gay marriage.
However, critics say she created a culture of handouts and clogged Latin America’s third-largest economy with interventionist policies.
Mauricio Macri – the outgoing mayor of Buenos Aires and a former president of football club Boca Juniors – defeated Cristina Fernandez’s preferred candidate Daniel Scioli by 51.4% to 48.6% in a run-off vote last month.
He is the first center-right leader to come to power since Argentina returned to democracy.
Mauricio Macri has not detailed his economic policies, but said that he will need to implement swift and radical changes in order to win back market confidence.
However, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s party still holds the most seats in the legislature and could make it hard for him to implement big changes.
Argentina’s opposition candidate Mauricio Macri has won the presidential election runoff in, exit polls suggest.
Polls by taken by TV stations shortly after voting closed indicated Mauricio Macri, 56, won, without giving a breakdown.
Mauricio Macri, the mayor of Buenos Aires, was up against Daniel Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires province.
Loud cheers erupted at Mauricio Macri’s campaign headquarters at the news, Reuters reported.
Party insiders claimed a five- to eight-percentage-point lead.
If the result is confirmed, it will be the first time in more than a decade that Argentina’s center-right opposition has wrested the presidency from the center-left Peronists.
Photo Getty Images
A spokesman for DanielScioli said they would wait for official figures to come in before commenting.
Neither candidate managed to win the first round of voting in October outright, forcing a runoff – the first in the country’s history.
DanielScioli was marginally ahead in the first round, with 36.7% to 34.5%, but has lost ground to his rival in the month since.
Mauricio Macri, the leader of the Cambiemos (Let’s Change) coalition, went into today’s vote with a comfortable lead in opinion polls.
He campaigned on pledges to bring new investment into the ailing economy, tackle crime and fight corruption.
The son of one of Argentina’s richest men, Mauricio Macri had a long career in business before entering politics.
A close ally of current President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Daniel Scioli had been expected to win by a greater margin in October.
Daniel Scioli is leading exit polls in Argentina’s election, but it is not clear if the vote will go into a runoff.
The center-left candidate was handpicked by two-term President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.
The head of the campaign led by Daniel Scioli’s main challenger, center-right Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, says the election is heading for a second round.
A run-off would be held on November 22.
Argentina’s C5N television network said Daniel Scioli had won by “a large margin”.
To win outright, a candidate needs 45% of the vote or a minimum of 40% as well as a 10-point lead over the nearest rival.
Daniel Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires province, is a former world power boating champion who lost his right arm in a race in 1989.
Photo Getty Images
Last week, he pledged tax cuts for workers earning under a certain income, a move expected to affect half a million people.
Daniel Scioli has also vowed to bring down Argentina’s inflation to single digits in less than four years and promises to introduce policy changes to invigorate the economy.
Another candidate, Sergio Massa, a former ally of Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is polling behind Mauricio Macri. There are three other names on the ballot paper, with 32 million people eligible to vote.
Long queues formed outside polling stations from the early hours on October 25.
Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who stands down after eight years in power, says she leaves Argentines a better country.
“We are voting today in a completely normal country,” she said after casting her vote in the Patagonian town of Rio Gallegos.
In previous decades, Argentines always went to the polls “in the middle of a serious crisis,” Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner added.
She said achieving stability and leaving Argentines “a normal country” was the promise made by her late husband, Neston Kirchner, when he took office in 2003.
Nestor Kirchner died in 2010, three years after handing over the presidency to his wife.
While Argentina gained strength after a financial crisis in 2002, its economy, the third-largest in Latin America, has slowed in recent years, with GDP growing by only 0.5% in 2014.
Argentina is voting to choose the country’s next president in a general election that ends 12 years of rule under the Kirchners.
President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has served two consecutive terms and, under Argentina’s constitution, cannot run again.
Cristina Fernandez’s hand-picked successor, left-winger Daniel Scioli, is leading polls.
However, Daniel Scioli he is expected to face stiff competition from Mauricio Macri, the centre-right mayor of Buenos Aires.
Another candidate, Sergio Massa, a former Kirchner ally, is polling behind Mauricio Macri, while there are three other names on the ballot paper.
Today is the first round of voting – if no candidate gets more than 45% of the vote, or gets a minimum of 40% as well as a 10-point lead, there will be a run-off on November 22.
Whoever wins the presidency faces significant economic challenges.
Photo AP
While Argentina gained strength after a financial crisis in 2002, its economy, the third largest in Latin America, has slowed down in recent years, with GDP growing by only 0.5% in 2014.
The government is also locked in a battle against American hedge funds who disagree with how is wants to restructure $100 billion of debt on which it defaulted in 2001.
While the companies successfully sued Argentina for repayment, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner refused to pay.
She succeeded her husband Nestor Kirchner as president. He died in 2010, three years after handing over the presidency to his wife.
Daniel Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires province, is a former world powerboating champion who lost his right arm in a boat race in 1989.
Last week, he pledged tax cuts for middle-class workers earning under a certain income, a move expected to affect half a million people.
Daniel Scioli has also vowed to bring down Argentina’s inflation to single digits in less than four years and promises to introduce policy changes to invigorate the economy.
Like Daniel Scioli, Mauricio Macri is married to a former model. He is a former president of Boca Juniors, Argentina’s most successful soccer club.
While Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner has sought to press Argentina’s claims for the disputed UK territory of the Falkland Islands, Daniel Scioli says he would not appoint a Falklands minister, and would seek closer ties with London.
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