The opposition candidate wins the presidential election
With more than 98% of all votes counted, the opposition candidate Mauricio Macri (*1959) of the Let’s Change Coalition won 51.4% of the vote in the Argentinean presidential election, clearly ahead of President Cristina Kirchner’s Peronist candidate Daniel Scioli (*1957), the Governor of the Province of Buenos Aires, who has already conceded defeat.
Mauricio Macri is a center-right candidate in favor of economic-liberalism in a country dominated by left-wing populism à la Perón. He is a trained civil engineer and businessman turned politician, who had worked several years for Citibank Argentina in Buenos Aires. He is the son of the wealthy, Italian-born industry and construction businessman Francesco Macri (*1930). Mauricio is the current mayor of Argentina’s capital Buenos Aires and a former president of the country’s most popular football club, Boca Junior’s, known for star players such as Maradona.
Presidente Mauricio Macri en el Sillón de Rivadavia Casa Rosada. Photo: Wikipedia.
Mauricio Macri promised desperately needed economic change. The inflation is over 20%. Capital controls had to be introduced. The country is on the verge of a financial collapse because it has been financing left-wing, populist policies for years. There are too many state employees. Corruption is rampant. The budget deficit is out of control. Argentina is in default on its sovereign debt. Mauricio Macri promised to find a solution with Argentina’s hedge fond creditors regarding the country’s sovereign debt going back to the 1999-2002 financial crisis, which spiraled out of control under Cristina Kirchner.
Mauricio Macri wants the improve Argentina’s ease-of-doing-business. He wants to liberalize the economy and tackle corruption. Subsidies will have to be cut as well as taxes, e.g. on grain exports.
The populist President Kristina Kirchner has served two terms already. For constitutional reasons, she could not run again. She had succeeded her husband, Nestor Kirchner, who died in office, victim of a heart attack. Her hand-picked, Peronist movement candidate, Daniel Scioli, was beaten in the close 2015 presidential race.
In parliament, Mauricio Macri cannot govern alone. He only controls 89 of the 257 seats. The ousted Peronist governmental coalition Frente para la Victoria controls 107 seats. Cristina Kirchner’s former cabinet chief, Sergio Massa, who finished third in the presidential election and is now in opposition to his former party, controls 33 seats. He offered Macri to work together. However, even together, Macri and Massa have no majority in parliament.
Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974) first served from 1946 until 1955, when he was ousted by a military coup. He served again from October 1973 until his death in July 1974. He was an admirer of Mussolini and Hitler, protected Nazi war criminals and, at the same time, gave more rights to Jews, legalized both divorce and prostitution. Above all, he managed to ruin Argentina, once one of the world’s richest countries, with populist policies including redistribution, subsidies and large welfare state. Some of Perón’s left-wing policies have endured until or been revived in the era of Cristina Kirchner.
It is indeed time for a change. Mauricio Marci will know have to implement it from December 10, 2015 onwards. However, even he paid tribute to Perón, unveiling a huge bronze statue of the caudillo in Buenos Aires shortly before the 2015 presidential election. At the ceremony, he spoke of Perón’s fight against poverty and for equality and social justice. In short, in Argentina, everybody seems to be a Perónist.
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Article added on November 23, 2015 at 11:26 CET; enlarged at 11:52 CET.
