Argentine presidential candidate Daniel Scioli stands next to his wife Karina Rabolini at the party’s
headquarters in Buenos Aires yesterday.
Reuters/Buenos Aires
Argentina’s tight runoff campaign kicked off yesterday with opposition challenger Mauricio Macri promising change and calling upon supporters of those candidates eliminated from the presidential election to back him over the ruling party hopeful.
Macri dealt a major blow to the ruling Front for Victory in the first round on Sunday, winning 34.3% of the vote, far more than pollsters had predicted and only slightly less than Daniel Scioli at 36.9%.
The pro-business Buenos Aires mayor’s surprisingly strong showing gave a turbo boost to Argentine financial assets yesterday, sending one bond to a record high and some shares up more than 20%.
“Argentina needs a change and we are ready to make that happen,” Macri told a news conference yesterday, calling for those Argentines who voted for other candidates in the first round of the election to back him in the runoff.
“We are here to represent you, we are here with humility, with responsibility ... and we ask you to accompany us.”
The election will shape how Argentina, Latin America’s third largest economy, will tackle economic woes such as double-digit inflation, precariously low foreign reserves and a sovereign debt default.
Sergio Massa, who took third place on Sunday with 21.3%, said his alliance would decide this week whom to back in the second round on November 22, Argentina’s first-ever runoff.
Massa congratulated his rivals on their result and vowed to remain in the political fight. “I want to congratulate Daniel and Mauricio. In three weeks Argentines will surely have to chose their path. We know what part we will play,” Massa told supporters, without saying who he would throw his vote behind.
Argentine newspaper headlines yesterday read, ‘Sea Change,’ ‘Macri’s great election thwacked the ruling party,’ ‘Surprise and a virtual tie between Macri and Scioli.’
“The result provides a clear message to politicians that the population favours change following 12 years of Kirchner rule, and that the electorate is shifting to the right,” JP Morgan analyst Iker Cabiedes wrote in a research note, referring to the governments of leftist Cristina Kirchner Fernandez and her late husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner.
Scioli, backed by Fernandez, is running on a platform of “gradual change” and has promised to maintain her popular welfare programmes.
Macri, on the other hand, advocates moving quickly to open up the economy, vowing to start dismantling protectionist currency and trade controls on his first day in office if he wins. Fernandez will hand over to her successor on December 10.
Argentine assets soared yesterday, with the defaulted 2038 euro-denominated issue hitting a record high of 56.167 cents and banking stocks traded in New York rising more than 20%.
Macri is favoured by investors for promising to free up the economy and conduct more investor-friendly policies. He is also the candidate seen as most likely to reach a deal with a group of “holdout” creditors whose lawsuit over bonds defaulted on by Argentina in 2002 caused a new and continuing default last year.
“If Macri wins, which is a very strong likelihood ... we have a very interesting growth cycle ahead in Argentina,” said Roberto Lampl, head of Latin American Investments at Alquity Investment Management.
Lampl said that even if Macri won, the road to growth would not be smooth because Argentina needed to devalue the currency, reach a deal with holdout creditors and address the fiscal deficit.
“Nevertheless, there are hundreds of billions of dollars of savings of wealthy Argentines outside of Argentina, ready to invest in their beloved country,” he said.
