By Martin Gambarotta.

The elections were held on Sunday. The votes have been counted. Néstor Kirchner, the former president, has lost. Kirchner, who headed the government party's list to the Lower House of Congress, conceded defeat in the wee hours of Monday with his jaw clenched. "We lost by a bit," he said. Hours before, embarrassingly, he had ordered campaigners to declare that exit polls showed Kirchner would win the election by "at least six points."

Kirchner won in Greater Buenos Aires - but not by a wide enough margin to defeat Francisco de Narváez, the head of the centre-right coalition's Unión-PRO list, who almost doubled the government party's votes in many sections of the province, especially in the rural areas.
Kirchner's fate was in the hands of working-class Greater Buenos Aires. But at the end of the day his win there was not big enough.

De Narváez, a wealthy businessman who is relatively new to politics, even won in a couple of Greater Buenos Aires districts (like Tres de Febrero and Lanús).
The result is a huge upset. De Narváez earlier this year, with the opposition splintered, did not look like a real challenge. Yet De Narváez, who bankrolled his own campaign, hired what he thought were the best spindoctors money could buy and got down to business. De Narváez also had the backing of City of Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, the leader of PRO.

Kirchner, who learnt his political trade as a leftwing Peronist student in the gritty 70s, never could stand professional managers and advisers. Kirchner scoffed at the notion that a candidate needs to be marketed and thought he could be his own spindoctor. By the end of election night he had spun himself - and the government of his wife President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner - into trouble.

De Narváez won in Buenos Aires, the nation's biggest province, with 2,504,525 votes (34.5 percent) against Kirchner's 2,325,076 (32.11 percent). The Social and Civic Accord (ACS), headed by Margarita Stolbizer, won 1,555,825 votes (21.48 percent).

Kirchner carried most of the sprawling working class-districts, including La Matanza (where 800,000 voters live). But the win over De Narváez (42 percent to 31 percent) in La Matanza was not big enough to compensate for other defeats.

The Victory Front, which had said the election was a plebiscite on the performance of the government, worked to clinch a landslide in Greater Buenos Aires and didn't get it. Kirchner, it would appear, was the problem. Many Greater Buenos Aires mayors, in the race for City Hall elections, garnered more votes than the former president. The mayors, who rely on federal funds for public works, were purportedly accused of "treason."

Yet even if Kirchner had won the same votes as the mayors he would have been defeated by De Narváez, who convinced enough opposition voters that he was their only chance of defeating Kirchner. The Victory Front also lost a precious 402,502 votes to Martín Sabbatella, the young leftist mayor of the Morón district who headed his own list of candidates to the Lower House.

To make matters worse for the government party on Sunday the Victory Front also lost in Kirchner's home Patagonian province: Santa Cruz. The winner in Santa Cruz was the Radical-led coalition headed by local businessman Eduardo Costa (who defeated the Victory Front 42.5 percent to 41.7 percent).

The elections were tight in Buenos Aires and Santa Cruz. But much of Kirchner's power went crashing down on Sunday like a huge chunk of ice off a Patagonian glacier. De Narváez and Macri were regally twisting to reggaeton in celebration on stage at their plush campaign headquarters in downtown Buenos Aires on Sunday night even before Kirchner had conceded. Felipe Solá, a former Peronist governor on De Narváez's side, was also celebrating.

To Kirchner the campaign had been an ideological crusade about distributing wealth and slaying vested interests. But to Unión-PRO's US-trained campaign strategist, Jaime Durán Barba, the race was always about showing some manners, skirting ideological issues and avoiding party politics.

The Kirchners' bruising standoff against the farmers over grain export duties last year was also a factor on Sunday. De Narváez doubled Kirchner's votes in many rural areas. The fallout from the farm conflict was also factor in other parts of the nation. In Mendoza province, the senatorial election was won by a Radical, incumbent Senator Ernesto Sanz, backed by Vice-President Julio Cobos.

Cobos, a dissident Radical who sided with the Kirchners in 2007, last year famously cast the decisive tie-breaking vote against a government bill to increase soybean export duties. Cobos' senatorial candidates in Mendoza defeated the Victory Front, which rules the province, 50 percent to 25 percent. It was one of the biggest wins of the night. Cobos had said that he would seek to run for president in 2011 if his candidates won in Mendoza. They won convincingly.

Incumbent Senator Carlos Reutemann, a Peronist who last year sided with the farmers in the standoff against the Fernández de Kirchner administration, also faced a key challenge. Reutemann was up against the Socialist Party Governor Hermes Binner who defeated the Peronists in the gubernatorial elections of 2007.

Binner, who enjoys huge support in the port city of Rosario, personally campaigned for the re-election of Senator Rubén Giustiniani. Reutemann, a former Formula One pilot known for his cautious driving when he raced, faced a tough challenge because the Peronist party in Santa Fe was split between the non-Kirchnerites and the Kirchnerites. Reutemann had severed ties prior to the election with Deputy Agustín Rossi, the head of the Victory Front's caucus in the Lower House of Congress.
In a crucial outcome for the future of the Peronist party, Reutemann on Sunday defeated Giustiniani (42.2 percent to 40.5 percent).

Rossi, who is unpopular in rural Santa Fe, was re-elected to the Lower House of Congress with 9.5 percent of the vote. The Victory Front won in smaller northern provinces like Tucumán and Formosa. It also carried San Juan and, in Patagonia, Río Negro (actually won by a pro-Kirchner Radical). But symbolically, with De Narváez, Cobos and Reutemann doing the celebrating, the government party was walloped.

Macri also rejoiced because he had canvassed Greater Buenos Aires where he is well-known from the time he was chairman of soccer club Boca Juniors. But how well did PRO perform in the city of Buenos Aires which Macri rules? Former deputy mayor Gabriela Michetti, the head of PRO's Lower House list here, won comfortably as predicted with 31.09 percent of the vote (five seats). But Macri and Michetti needed a bigger win at a municipal level to clinch control of the City Assembly where PRO will hold an unimpressive 26 out of 60 seats.

Michetti's performance was not as shiny as PRO's win in the mayoral race of 2007 when Macri won 60 percent of the vote in the runoff. The real sensation of the election on Sunday night here was leftist filmmaker "Pino" Solanas who came out of nowhere to win 24.2 percent of the vote (and four seats in the Lower House for the small leftist coalition Proyecto Sur). Solanas beat the ACS that carried Civic Coalition leader Elisa Carrió on its list in third place. The Accord won 19.5 percent (three seats including Carrió, but not without some suspense).

Carlos Heller, the Kirchnerite candidate, was fourth in this city with 11.63 percent of the vote (one seat). Suddenly the centre-left looks in shape to challenge Macri's party for the mayoral elections of 2011.
Solanas' little-known Proyecto Sur could be a factor in the future because it has the support of the CTA, the nation's second largest union umbrella group that includes the ATE state workers union and the CTERA teachers union.

Solanas' party, despite being highly critical of Kirchner, last year backed in Congress the government bills to nationalize the airline Aerolíneas Argentinas and the private pension funds now run by the state administrator ANSeS. Yet the big news, even when you count Solanas' sensational surge on Sunday night, was still De Narváez.

Kirchner's real concession came on Monday morning when, in a message recorded at the Olivos presidential residence, he told the state-run news agency Télam that he had quit as head of the Peronist party. Kirchner, who during his presidency in 2003-2007 showed little interest in party politics, was named leader of the Peronist party in March of last year. He purportedly agreed to lead the party to prevent it being taken over by centre-right dissidents.

Kirchner was flanked in Olivos by Daniel Scioli, the governor of Buenos Aires province who also ran for the Lower House, and Alberto Balestrini, the lieutenant-governor and head of the Buenos Aires province chapter of the Peronist party. Scioli, Kirchner said, will from now on head the Peronist party. He said that Scioli will not take his seat in the Lower House and will continue to govern the province. The taped resignation message, to the critics, had the feel of a monarch reluctantly abdicating in favour of his dauphin. Scioli's way out of a tight spot could be to call open primaries in the party by March, 2011.

But there's counting to be done here and now. The Victory Front lost 19 seats in the 257-seat Lower House on Sunday nationwide. It will hold 97 seats (plus 17 potential allies) when the new Lower House convenes in December. The Victory Front lost four seats in the 72-seat Senate. It will hold 36 out of 72 seats and could enjoy a majority because it has at least two potential allies.
Yet there is speculation that the situation in the Lower House is worse. Rossi reportedly fears that many Peronists will defect the caucus, say, if the time comes to vote a bill to reduce soybean export duties as demanded by the farmers.

Kirchner quit early on Monday. The President called a press conference that same afternoon in Government House to asses the outcome of the elections. The President looked chirpy and even cracked some jokes in an effort to send out the message that defeat was not the end of the world.

Yet the opposition, including Cobos, implied that she was out of touch with reality and had behaved like a political analyst rather than a head of state.
Fernández de Kirchner made a point of highlighting Solanas' impressive performance, prompting speculation that the ruling party will seek to reach an agreement with Proyecto Sur.

Carrió, after watching the press conference on television, said the President will be in deep institutional trouble and will have problems running the country as soon as next week if she does not find a way to deal with the crisis. Carrió and other opposition leaders are demanding sweeping changes and policies. Solanas on Monday demanded the resignation of Federal Planning Minister Julio De Vido, Domestic Trade Secretary Guillermo Moreno and Transport Secretary Ricardo Jaime.
Critics have accused Moreno, who controls the state-run statistics bureau INDEC, of doctoring the cost of living figures and other data.

The President on Monday ruled out immediate Cabinet changes. She also made a point of spelling out that if all votes are counted nationwide the Victory Front and allies came first with 5,871,345 votes (31.2 percent) with the Social and Civic Accord (ACS) second with 5,763,342 votes (30.7 percent).

The opposition, the President added, had issued loud warnings about possible "fraud" on Sunday. But the vote count went off perfectly, Fernández de Kirchner said.
The Accord, which includes Carrió's Civic Coalition, the Radical Party and most of the Socialist Party, will also be the second minority in the Lower House with 76 seats.
So the ruling party won 5.8 million votes? Not bad.
So why did Kirchner hit the Escape button on the keyboard of the Peronist party computer and has left Scioli in charge? Simply because those five million votes do not solely belong to Kirchner, but to many bigwigs in many provinces.

The President, with Kirchner out of the picture, is thus at the mercy of the Peronist governors who won on Sunday, including José Alperovich (Tucumán), José Luis Gioja (San Juan), Jorge Capitanich (Chaco) and Mario das Neves (Chubut). Yet, because he is far better known and potentially popular with independent voters, Reutemann will also have a say in the party's future. The Socialists accused Reutemann during the campaign of having a secret deal with Kirchner to return to the fold after the elections. Reutemann was thus left with no choice but to snub the new Peronist leadership headed by Scioli. Reutemann has revealed that he did not return a call left on his cell phone by Scioli and that he had no time for party politics. Reutemann added that the President should be granted "a week" to come to terms with defeat.

The Peronist governors, who depend on federal cash to keep their administrations running, and Reutemann have the power to spare Fernández de Kirchner from humiliation and allow her to bow out in relative style in 2011. They will also seek not to lose those 5.8 million votes that technically belong to the Victory Front/Peronist party.
What is not clear is how many of those votes still belong to Kirchner. Kirchner yesterday made a surprise appearance at a gathering in La Boca of leftwing intellectuals who revere him. Reportedly he vowed to keep on fighting.

Yet back in Olivos already the President seems to be leaning on the shoulder of the provincial governors. Graciela Ocaña, who resigned on Monday as health minister in the middle of the virulent outbreak of swine flu, has been replaced by Juan Manzur, a member of the Alperovich administration in Tucumán. Ocaña, a non-Peronist centre-left official, was expected to quit even before swine flu hit the nation because she has been at odds with the pro-government trade unions over healthcare funds.

Manzur on Friday made a point of meeting with Hugo Moyano, the secretary-general of the General Labour Confederation (CGT) who is a member of Scioli's Peronist party leadership. Moyano has been criticized by dissident trade union leaders because he staged a massive demonstration in April where he called on workers to vote for the Victory Front. Reutemann meanwhile could also be part of an assault on the Peronist party by more conservative sectors, including De Narváez, Macri and Solá.

Scioli has been criticized by members of the Peronist old guard who have limited territorial clout, but are sharp-tongued and experienced. The old guard critics include former caretaker Eduardo Duhalde, Ramón Puerta (elected to the Lower House in Misiones province with PRO's support) and Salta Senator Juan Carlos Romero.
The Kirchnerites, Puerta said, "were poison to the Peronist party."

Scioli and the Buenos Aires Peronists, including Balestrini, have accused the old guard of trying to spin "a soap opera" to gain control of the party.
The pressure will continue. The President said on Monday she did not plan to shuffle her Cabinet. Yet Jaime, the Transport secretary blasted by Carrió and Solanas, quit on Wednesday amid speculation that he will be summoned by a judge probing allegations that he used a jet owned by a private company for personal trips.

The government was forced to deny the resignation of Moreno and of Economy Minister Carlos Fernández on Wednesday. Yet it is very likely that more Cabinet changes will happen from here until December.
Now the race for the presidency has three very clear potential candidates: Cobos, Reutemann and Macri. (According to the Constitution, De Narváez cannot run for president because he was not born in Argentina but in Colombia.)

Other winners on Sunday include Luis Juez, a centre-left Carrió ally who won the Senate race in Peronist-ruled Córdoba. Carrió's Accord also defeated the Kirchnerite Peronists in Entre Ríos, a farming province that was a flashpoint of the protest by farmers last year. The big challenge for the opposition is to live up to expectations. They have been here before and failed dismally to deliver - think about the defunct Radical-Frepaso Alliance that collapsed infamously during the crisis of 2001.

The confrontational Kirchners tried to sort out Argentina's flawed political history on their own whip-cracking terms - and failed. Voters, shell-shocked by so many past crises and with Kirchner's militant rhetoric still buzzing in their ears, seem to crave the kind of sugar-coated moderation professional campaigners are only too happy to dispense. Yet what could lie ahead instead are more bitterly tight elections and, possibly, yet another crash even before 2011.