Argentines will elect their next president on October 22, in a tight race that polls indicate will be settled between the surprise of the elections, the ultra-liberal Javier Milei, the Peronist and minister Sergio Massa and the conservative candidate Patricia Bullrich.
At the beginning of December, the new president will take the reins of a country whose economy is going through a serious crisis, marked by triple-digit inflation, the instability of its currency and growing poverty.
In the August primaries, Milei, from the La Libertad Avanza party (LLA), broke all predictions, winning 30% of the votes, surpassing Bullrich’s opposition coalition Together for Change (JxC) – with 28.3%. of the votes – and to the ruling alliance Unión por la Patria (UxP) of Massa, which had 27.3% of the votes.
Until that moment, public opinion consultants placed the libertarian party in third place, sometimes distant, among all the presidential candidates.
The dissident Peronist Juan Schiaretti, from the We Do for Our Country party, and Myriam Bregman, the candidate from the Left Front, will also participate in the elections.
To be elected president in the first round, any candidate must obtain more than 45% of the votes cast or at least 40% plus a difference of more than 10 percentage points over his follower. Otherwise, the two candidates with the highest number of votes will define the election in a runoff on November 19.
Below is a summary of the main candidates and their proposals to obtain the presidency of Argentina:
JAVIER MILEI
With messy hair, histrionics and an incendiary speech that targets what he describes as “the political caste”, Javier Milei is the biggest political surprise in recent years in Argentina.
A complete ‘outsider’ of the Argentine political establishment, the current 52-year-old deputy and economist was until just a few years ago a commentator on television programs, identifiable more for his eccentricities and theatricalism.
However, thanks to social discontent with traditional politicians driven by a serious economic crisis with high inflation, Milei and his party grew to the point of surpassing the two heavyweights of local politics in the primaries.
Among other far-right proposals, Milei has said he will eliminate the central bank and adopt the US dollar as its currency to reduce inflation. She also promised to privatize health, and education and eliminate public works, in an intense reduction of the state.
SERGIO MASSA
The current Minister of Economy, a 51-year-old lawyer, will seek in the elections to retain power for the ruling Peronist coalition, which closes its current administration at the hands of President Alberto Fernández involved in a crisis.
Massa, a long-time politician who cemented his power as mayor of the suburb of Tigre, sees reducing the fiscal deficit and strengthening reserves as the answer to the complex puzzle of the Argentine economy, along with the classic Peronist objective of betting on the domestic market.
With fluid contacts with businessmen and with Washington, Massa is the expression of a Peronism that seeks to present itself as conciliatory with the markets, which observe with satisfaction an apparent decrease in the level of influence of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the center-left reference in the coalition, in the decisions of the party.
PATRICIA BULLRICH
Although Bullrich defeated her rival within JxC by a wide margin in the August primaries, the Minister of Security during Mauricio Macri’s administration between 2015 and 2019 also suffered a tough defeat when she was surpassed by Milei as the main candidate of the opposition.
Bullrich, 67, has said that a cut in fiscal spending is necessary to combat inflation, but he also proposes a rapid elimination of taxes on agricultural exports, one of the Argentine State’s main sources of resources.
With great emphasis on the recovery of “order”, Bullrich obtained the presidential candidacy of JxC adopting a harsh speech that denies the possibility of negotiation with Peronism and with promises such as the elimination of capital controls as quickly as possible.
JUAN SCHIARETTI
The 74-year-old former governor of the province of Córdoba is the representative of a dissident faction of the ruling Peronist coalition, due to differences with Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In the primaries, his party We Do for Our Country obtained 3.8% of the votes.
MYRIAM BREGMAN
A historic socialist representative of Argentina, the 51-year-old lawyer is the presidential candidate of the Left Front (FIT) coalition of parties, which received 2.7% of the votes in the open primaries.
