Argentina’s president, Cristina Kirchner, wins election primary

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner achieves 50% of votes, 38 percentage points ahead of her nearest rival, Raúl Alfonsín Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has taken a major step towards re-election in the country’s first national primary. With more than 96% of the ballots counted, Kirchner had just over 50%, the government election authority said. She was nearly 38 percentage points ahead of the closest candidate, the centrist Radical Civic Union party congressman Raúl Alfonsín. The former president Eduardo Duhalde, of a conservative faction of the Peronist party, was third, also with 12%. Sunday’s primary elections were a nationwide opinion poll because most parties had already chosen their candidates and voters could cast ballots for any party’s candidate. To avoid a runoff, the winning candidate in the October elections must get at least 45% of the vote, or 40% with a lead of at least 10 points over the closest contender. The results showed Kirchner had no real competitor. Her two main opponents, Alfonsín and Duhalde, fared worse than expected, and the electoral law prohibits them from joining forces and forming a new alliance. If Kirchner gets a similar result in the first round of voting on 23 October, she will win a third term for her centre-left faction of the Peronists. Kirchner succeeded her husband, Néstor Kirchner, in 2007. Her victory was widely attributed to popular support for her husband, whom many Argentinians credited with reviving the county’s economy after its collapse in 2001, when Argentina suffered an acute financial crisis and defaulted on its sovereign debt. In 2008 her popularity rating fell below 30% after a four-month tax revolt by farmers, an important force in the country. But strong economic growth since then has helped to create jobs, increase wages and allow the government to extend welfare programmes. The death of her husband in October 2010 pushed her popularity ratings up again. Argentina Cristina Kirchner guardian.co.uk

Posted by on August 15, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.