Argentine Elections: Incumbent President Fernandes Withdraws from the Race

On a suddenly move, incumbent President Alberto Fernandes has withdrawn from the electoral race. In a 7 minutes’ video posted on his social networks, the President stated that he will work toward a smooth succession to whoever wins on the ballots in October. There have been many clashes within its coalition “Frente de Todos”, especially over his economic policy and their role on the current crisis Argentina lives in. Argentine rising inflation and the prospect of severe droughts indicates that 2023 is going to be a tough year for Argentina, and Fernandes political image which is already deteriorated among Argentineans is set to get worse, making his candidacy very weak.

We take a look at some names which could appear on the primary elections on Aug. 15, but we emphasize that our take is that the opposition wins the election against whoever runs for the ruling coalition. The coalitions must appoint their candidates for the National Primaries by Jun. 14.

The Candidates of the Ruling Coalition

The exit of Alberto Fernandes does not make it clear who is going to be the Presidential candidate for the ruling coalition “Frente de Todos”. There are several politicians inside the coalition who have shown the desire to be the candidate, but the fragmented coalition struggles to find a consensus name. The most likely scenario is that the coalition fits a short list of candidates for the national primary elections in August and let the voters decide which candidate is the most adequate. Below we put on a list of the ones, which could appear on the final list for the primaries:

• Daniel Scioli: Daniel Scioli have been highlighted as one of the candidates to run for Presidency at “Frente de Todos”, he is a well know figure from the Kirchners camp, as he was Vice-President of Nestor Kirchner between 2003-2007, governor of the Buenos Aires Province between 2007-2014, and lost the 2015 election to Mauricio Macri. He is currently the Argentine Ambassador in Brazil.
• Eduardo “Wado” de Pedro: He is currently the Minister of Interior and previously has occupied the role of Deputy in the Chamber of Deputies in 2011-15 and 2015-2019. He could be viewed as one of the Kirchner figures that opposes the views of the current economic policy pursued by President Alberto Fernandes, which could distance himself from the economic disasters we have seen recently.
• Sergio Massa: He is the current Minister of the Economy. He has also been Mayor of Tigres (2009-2013) and Deputy at the Chambers of Deputies (2019-2023) he has also participated in the 2015 election in which Mauricio Macri won. He was one of the three heads that envisage the “Frente de Todos” formation in 2019. He wants to be on the final list, however doubts remains as he is supervising the Argentine economy during a period of high instability.
• Juan Grabois: He is one of most respected voices of “Frente de Todos” but have been mainly criticizing the policies pursued by the coalition, especially the renovation of the IMF deal. He currently does not occupy any post on the government and he has already stated he is a candidate for the Primaries unless a candidate of the coalition presents his same ideas of social justice and national sovereignty.
• Cristina Kirchner: The incumbent Vice-President and President between 2007-2014 has already stated her desire of not being candidate but she still holds a strong voice inside the coalition. Many of her supporters advocates for her candidacy, thus we cannot rule out that her name is on the primary list. She would face legal issues as a sentence has found her guilty of corruption, but the execution of this sentence is still on hold.

The Candidates of the Opposition

Inside the main opposition force, “Juntos por el Cambio”, the race for the Presidential candidate is more restricted. Only three candidates are posting themselves for the race, as Mauricio Macri, President between 2016-2019, has already declared he is out of the race. However, the three candidates are very firm on their decision to run for Presidency and the most likely scenario is that the three of them run for the Primaries.

• Horacio Larreta: Larreta is the mayor of the Buenos Aires after he was re-elected in 2019. He has been a figure very close to Mauricio Macri as he had worked with him very actively for the 2015 and 2019 elections. However, since Macri announced he was not going to be candidate for the election he has been trying to be the political leader of the coalition, which has been generating clashes with Macri and other members. He is one of the logical choices to run for the Presidency but his closeness to Macri, which is at the moment a very unpopular figure, could undermine his candidacy.
• Patricia Bullrich: Bullrich is the leader of the PRO party, which is one of the parties that formed the Juntos por el Cambio coalition. She was a Deputy between 2007-2014 and between 2015-2019 was the Minister of Security in Macri’s term. She has been advocating since 2022 that she wants to be the Juntos por el Cambio candidate although she faces a tough competition.
• Maria Eugenia Vidal: Vidal was the governor of the Buenos Aires Province between 2016-2019 and failed to be re-elected in 2019. She currently occupies a seat on the Chamber of Deputies in which she was elected in 2021. Despite her name not being the favourite inside the coalition she refuses to take her name out and has been showing desire to be one of the names to appear in the Primaries.

The Outsider

Javier Milei is currently a candidate that can be viewed as an outsider between the two major forces. He leads the “Libertarian Parties” which is currently a minor force on Argentina politics. He holds several contradictory opinions and advocates for less taxes. He is currently identified with other controversial far-right figures in world politics such as Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump. Several polls are pointing to him as a viable candidate with real possibilities to get to the second round in the elections. As Argentina crisis could be viewed as a chapter that passed through the two main political forces in Argentina, a scenario in which some voters switches to an outsider, similar to what we saw in Brazil 2016 could not be discarded.