A general election (i.e. both presidential and legislative) will be held in Argentina on 25 October 2015, with a second round of voting due to take place, if required, on 22 November.[1] This follows primary elections which were held on 9 August 2015. The last Argentine presidential election took place on 23 October 2011, whilst legislative elections were last held on 27 October 2013.[2]
The President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was re-elected in 2011. As the Constitution of Argentina does not allow more than two consecutive terms, several politicians from the Front for Victory (FPV) proposed an amendment of the constitution to allow unlimited re-elections. This proposal was heavily resisted by the opposition parties, and the FPV could not reach the required two-thirds majority in the Congress. The mid-term 2013 elections ceased the projects for an amendment, because the FPV could not approach the necessary supermajority with the new members of the Congress.[3] With Cristina Kirchner unable to run, three candidates lead the opinion polls: Daniel Scioli, Sergio Massa and Mauricio Macri.[4]
Initially, the Front for Victory had several precandidates to the presidency, but only Daniel Scioli and Florencio Randazzo had good reception in the opinion polls. Scioli was resisted by factions of the party, who did not consider him truly loyal to the president. All the minor candidates resigned when Cristina Kirchner requested them to do so.[5] Randazzo resigned as well some weeks before the primary elections, leaving Scioli as the sole precandidate of the FPV.[6] Randazzo did not accept to run for governor of the Buenos Aires province, which had primary elections between minister Aníbal Fernández and Julián Domínguez.[7] Fernández won the local primary elections.
Sergio Massa, a former Kirchnerist chief of cabinet, won the 2013 elections with the Renewal Front and had a support in the populous Buenos Aires province. Most of the mayors who had left the FPV to join him returned to the FPV, and he gradually declined in the opinion polls.[8] He created the coalition United for a New Alternative, joined by the governor of Córdoba José Manuel de la Sota. Adolfo Rodríguez Saá refused to join the coalition, and ran in a separate party instead.[9]
The primary elections were held on August 9. Mauricio Macri and Sergio Massa won the internal elections of their respective coalitions. On a global level, Daniel Scioli got the 38% of the vote, followed by Macri with 30% and Massa with 20%.[13]
Several scandals took place during the time of the elections, or related to the elections themselves.
The primary elections and some local elections had scandals of Electoral fraud. There was a frequent theft of ballot papers from the polling places. State-owned Correo Argentino collects the results of each school and sends them to a centralized location for their global count; there have been reports of inconsistencies between the results signed in the schools and those informed by Correo Argentino. Tucumán even had a case of people burning ballot boxes, which led to several demonstrations at Plaza Independencia. There was policial repression on those demonstrations, leading to further scandals.
Journalist Jorge Lanata aired an interview with a prisoner sentenced for the 2008 Triple crime, who claimed that Aníbal Fernández was the mastermind of that crime. This increased the tensions between Fernández and Domínguez, as Fernández considered that Domínguez helped Lanata somehow. Scioli stayed away from both precandidates to governor in the last week before the primary elections, which were won by Fernández.[14]
Ariel Velázquez, a sympathizer of the Radical Civic Union, was shot in his house in Jujuy, after taking part in the political campaign. He died two weeks later, and the Tupac Amaru organization (led by Kirchnerite Milagro Sala) was blamed for it. President Cristina Kirchner claimed that he was not a Radical, which was refuted by his family.[14]
Several cities in the Buenos Aires Province suffered big floods during the primary elections, and the following week. The flood affected 10,000 people. Daniel Scioli had left to Italy at that moment, and made a rushed return. Mauricio Macri considered it a result of poor urban planning under Scioli's provincial government, and compared it with the lack of flood in Buenos Aires during the same storm, which had undergone flood prevention works under his leadership. Scioli accused users of social networks to plot to damage his public image, and claimed that he has all of them identified.[14]
The following galleries feature individuals who have been confirmed as presidential candidates for their respective parties and electoral coalitions following primary elections on 9 August 2015.[15][16]