Some 35.8 million Argentines are called to vote this Sunday in the second round of a presidential election that is very close and will decide who will occupy the Casa Rosada starting on December 10 and for the next four years.
The outlook is so uncertain that there is no clear favorite. The polls show a technical tie, since some give the official favorite, the Peronist candidate of Unión por la Patria, Sergio Massa, and others the opponent, the far-right leader of La Libertad Avanza, Javier Milei; in both cases, with little advantage.
“The outlook is one of the worst I’ve seen. People have to choose between bad and worse, and many don’t know what to do.” This is how MDL, an Argentine living in Barcelona, describes the difficult decision that the citizens of the South American country face this Sunday to elect the nation’s next president.
On the one hand is the Peronist candidate and current Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, to whom a part of the citizenry attributes the economic crisis and the highest inflation that the country has had in the last 30 years. On the other side is the ultraliberal candidate, Javier Milei, who proposes drastic measures such as the elimination of the Central Bank and the dollarization of the country.
The current Minister of Economy and official candidate, Sergio Massa, has appeared before the media after casting his vote in the town of Tigre, in the province of Buenos Aires. “It is very important that today we have the ability to know that we are beginning a new stage in Argentina and that stage requires, in addition to good will, intelligence and capacity, above all dialogue and consensus necessary for our country to travel a much brighter path. virtuous in the future,” he indicated. Masa has called for “hope” and “consensus.”
“It is an election that defines what country we are going to have for the next four years. We want it to be carried out with the full responsibility of all of us who intervene in the electoral process,” he highlighted. Massa has avoided referring to the information that he could appoint Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, from the opposition Together for Change, as Minister of Economy. “It is a closed day and I would like us not to violate the law because of my answer to a journalistic question,” he said. “After the result, we will have to establish priorities. Let’s wait for the result calmly, with hope and with optimism that the future of Argentina will find us better and more united,” he stressed.
30% of the electoral roll has voted in Argentina until noon in this second round of the presidential elections, as reported this Sunday by the National Electoral Chamber (CNE). The figure is similar to that recorded in the general elections held on October 22, when at noon 29.6% of citizens authorized to go to the polls had attended, and that of the primary elections on August 13, when 28% of citizens went to the polls.
The candidate for the Vice Presidency of Argentina from La Libertad Avanza (far-right), Victoria Villarruel, voted this Sunday for the runoff in a context of tension due to “never again” posters, a phrase that in Argentina is a symbol of the repudiation of State terrorism , with which it was received. “I consider it part of democracy,” Villarruel told the media about the small group of people who were waiting for her at the entrance to her polling place and stressed that “it is the first time that the daughter of a veteran (of the war) of Malvinas, that the daughter of a military man becomes vice president.
“I don’t know what might bother them if they have had children of terrorists and terrorists in government positions,” said the candidate for Vice President of La Libertad Avanza, led by libertarian Javier Milei.
The candidate for the Presidency of Argentina from La Libertad Avanza (far-right), Javier Milei, appeared this Sunday “calm” and “satisfied” after voting in Buenos Aires, and despite the “campaign of fear” that, in his opinion, , did his rival. “We are very satisfied. We did an enormous job despite the campaign of fear and the dirty campaign that they have waged on us,” Milei told journalists stationed at the door of the university establishment in the capital’s Almagro neighborhood, where he voted.
Milei, dressed in black with a leather jacket, was received by a crowd of supporters who shouted “freedom”, “president” and “the caste is afraid”, in reference to his ultra-liberal proposals.
The official candidate, Sergio Massa, was optimistic this Sunday about the future of Argentina after casting his vote in the town of Tigre (province of Buenos Aires), of which he was mayor and where he resides. “Let us await the result calmly, with hope and, above all, with optimism that the future of Argentina will find us better and more united,” the current Minister of Economy indicated before the media.
Massa was received at the polling station by a crowd of supporters both upon his arrival and to see him off after casting his vote.
