Argentina’s president since 2019, Alberto Fernandez (centre-left), announced on Friday (April 21) that he will not seek re-election in the general elections in October. This decision further opens up the field of an already uncertain ballot. On December 10, the end of the presidential mandate, the 64-year-old head of state will thus hand over “the presidential sash for those who have been legitimately elected”he announced in a video.
Alberto Fernandez had so far cast doubt on his participation in the primaries of the government camp in August. And his surprise announcement comes in a particularly feverish economic context, with inflation out of control, at 21.7% over three months, and 104.3% year-on-year, after 94.8% in 2022.
It also punctuates a week that has seen increased pressure on Argentina’s currency, the peso, which is steadily depreciating against the dollar. The peso was trading Wednesday at 225 to the dollar at the official rate, but at 432 to the dollar at the informal rate.
Last month, in his last general policy speech in Parliament, Alberto Fernandez defended his three years of presidency in a hostile context marked by the Covid, the impact of the war in Ukraine, Argentine debt and chronic inflation. But with however two years of growth in a row (10.3% in 2021, 5.4% in 2022), unprecedented in Argentina for twelve years.
Way open for two of the main figures of the opposition coalition
His withdrawal leaves a particularly uncertain electoral field, no obvious candidate emerging at this stage in the camp of the government coalition (centre-left). Vice-President Cristina Kirchner, head of state from 2007 to 2015 and heiress of the Peronist current, announced at the end of 2022 that she would not run, shortly after her conviction in a trial for fraud and corruption during her presidential mandates .
The Minister of Economy since last July, Sergio Massa, 50, himself a former presidential candidate (in 2015), has been presented several times in the press as a possible candidate, this hypothesis being however closely linked to a stabilization of the economy. In opposition, the previous president (from 2015 to 2019), the liberal Mauricio Macri, also announced in March that he would not run for president, after having left doubts for a long time.
This step aside opened the way for two of the main figures of the opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio, who declared their pre-candidacy: Horacio Larreta, 57, mayor (center right) of Buenos Aires since 2015, and Patricia Bullrich, 66, the right-handed ex-security minister of the Macri government.
General elections in Argentina will take place on October 22, with a possible run-off on November 19. The primaries, in the government camp as well as in the opposition, are scheduled for August 13.