51, 4% for Mauricio
Macri, 48.6% for Cristina Kirchner, a result that was expected after the first
round of the Argentinian presidential elections, but that no previous poll was
able to predict just some moths before. No one dared to declare their voting
intentions agencies to the opinion agencies, for fear of being "marked",
if this information was revealed to government agents. Nevertheless, the
candidate of the liberal right beat the one of the populist-left version of
Peronism.
The results
gave a victory to Macri, also because he was able to win in the Province of
Buenos Aires, traditional stronghold of Peronism and strong rock of Argentina
left. In the city of Buenos Aires he had
already done so long time ago, becoming Mayor of the capital of Argentina in
2007. In the province of Cordoba (central Argentina), one of the most important
for its agricultural production, Macri got more than 70% of the votes; the
agricultural sector had been heavily punished for the taxes by the government
of Cristina Kirchner, to many experts this has been the error that prevented Argentina
to have a big economical grow during the past five years. If there was an
economic sector facing “kircherism”, that was the agricultural sector.
PRO a political party made to Macri.
Mauricio
Macri is the son of a famous and successful businessman, Franco Macri, an
Italian born in Rome in 1930, who emigrated to Argentina in 1949 and got the Argentinian
nationality in 1951, like many other Italians who came to Argentina at that
time and whose sons and grandchildren are a fundamental part of society
Argentina[1]. Macri belongs to the economic elite and has
been educated in this elitist environment. His entry into police needed a good
job of their image consultants, who changed their image to make it less
"elitist" and "hard", also knowing how to use his good physical
appearance to make a close and friendly image.
Macri,
after graduating as a civil engineer, began his public life by being elected
president of the famous football club Boca Juniors. Boca Juniors is the club of
Argentina's most popular classes, in the beginning it was of Italian
immigrants, hence it is called the "xeneize”[2]' team.
His good leadership of the Boca Juniors
helped him to achieve significant support among popular classes, and achieve
take significant amount of votes among people who usually vote for Peronism.
As
president of Boca Juniors, and taking advantage of its popularity, Mauricio
Macri decided to run for mayor Buenos Aires, with the party he had formed in
2005, PRO (Republican Proposal (PRO), a party of liberal Right coming to end
the political hegemony of the two traditional Argentinian parties:
The
Peronist Party, known in Argentina as Justicialist Party[3]: Peronism in its broadest spectrum, with
internal nuances ranging from right to left, but always in a nationalist,
protectionist and anti-liberal way.
Radical
Civic Union (UCR)[4]
, a moderate center-left party, in deep decline since the presidency of Raul
Alfonsin and Fernando de la Rua, that in these elections have supported Macri
against their traditional enemies, the Peronist Party.
Changes and challenges.
After
assuming power at the Presidential ceremony last December 10th, ceremony that
Cristina Kirchner refused to attend and asked to boycott, Macri began his
mandate with several key points that have to face immediately:
-Internally:
the tough opposition that Cristina Kirchner and the powerful Peronist Unions
"had promised" to do against him.
-Economically.
Macri started quickly with measures the control the quote of Peso. He also
finished with high rates of export tariffs of agricultural products, which will undoubtedly
boost the economy. But there is a danger that Macri go too far with the
"neo-liberalism" and fall into errors, as the disastrous government
of Menem made.
-Reform of
the judiciary, which may end judging several members of the former government for
corruption, may be Cristina Kirchner herself.
Macri will
have to take into account the great social benefits, sometimes in exchange for
votes-that Kirchner has made in recent years to lower social classes, one of
the reasons why the Argentine coffers are empty. Macri's government will have to maintain some
sort of social assistance to avoid facing revolts very soon.
-Foreign
policy. Macri has already come into
conflict with the former Argentinian ally Venezuela, and has committed to
normalizing relations with Western countries, especially the US and UK. At the same time you will have to try to
maintain good relations with important countries for Argentina today as Russia
and China.
[1] There are more Italian than Spanish
surnames in Argentina nowadays.
[2] Xena is the name of Genoa in
Ligurian dialect, “xeneize” means “from Genoa”
[3]
Partido Justicialista.
[4] Unión Cívica Radical in Spanish.
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