2011 Presidential elections

Saturday, October 22, 2011

CFK reelected in landslide victory with 54% of the vote, regains majority in Congress

Argentina's president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, won a landslide re-election victory as voters credited her unconventional policies for a long economic boom. With over 98.25 percent of polling stations tallied, the President obtained 53.96 percent of the vote, with a massive lead of 36 percentage points over her nearest rival, socialist candidate Hermes Binner.

No Argentine leader has won such a big share of the vote since Juan Domingo Perón was elected for the third time with over 62 percent in 1973.

Socialist candidate Hermes Binner follows second with a 16.87 percent of the votes, making this the largest vote difference between two candidates in Argentina’s election history.

UDESO candidate Ricardo Alfonsín comes in third with a 11.15 percent of the votes, followed by Alberto Rodríguez Sáa with a 7.98 percent, Eduardo Duhalde with a 5.89 percent, Carlos Altamira with 2.31 percent and Elisa Carrió with a 1.84 percent.

Preliminary results suggest that Fernández de Kirchner even obtained a larger amount of votes than the ones she got during last August’s primary elections.

The Victory Front party also obtained five City lawmaker seats and the PRO party was able to hold the three seats at stake, although City Mayor Mauricio Macri assured that "there was a record high of split- ballots."

Meanwhile, Civic Coalition lawmaker, Patricia Bullrich, barely obtained the necessary amount of votes to grab hold of her seat, while Martín Redrado was left out. 

The Victory Front's lawmakers list ended up in first place with 30 percent of votes. Thus, Economy Vice-minister Alberto Feletti, the president the National Comittee of Popular Libraries, María Marta Bianchi, and La Cámpora leader Andrés "Cuervo" Larroque obtained seats in the Lower House for the BA City. 

PRO party was able to hold its three seats at stake by drawing 18 percent of votes and granting the bloc's president, Federico Pinedo, reelection, while Cornelia Schmidt-Liermann and Pablo Tonelli will become the centre-right party's new City lawmakers.

City Mayor and centre-right wing PRO party leader Mauricio Macri said he was "very happy" because his party reached a split-ballot record, with people voting for Federico Pinedo, despite the fact he shared no presidential candidate's ballot.

So far, Fernández de Kirchner is beating Binner by 37.09 percent, which is the largest voting difference in a presidential election since the return of democracy in 1983, but still short from the 37.43 percent victory margin obtanied by Perón over Radical Party's candidate Ricardo Balbín in 1973.

In the Buenos Aires province, Governor Daniel Scioli managed to be reelected. With votes in from 97.66 percent of polling stations, Scioli gathers 55.06 percent of the vote leaving his main rival, Colombian tycoon Francisco de Narváez, way behind with only 15.87 percent of the vote.

Some 28 million Argentines were able to vote yesterday in all 23 Argentina provinces for president and vice-president, as well as 130 lawmakers and 24 national senators out of those put forward in the August primaries.

This year’s election marks the seventh general election since the return to democracy in 1983, also making it the second time a head of state is seeking re-election for a new term in office.

Furthermore, provincial elections were held in nine districts including: Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos, La Pampa, San Luis, Santa Cruz, Jujuy, San Juan, Mendoza and Formosa, where governor and province legislators were elected.

Under Argentine election law, candidates are guaranteed a first-round victory if they win more than 45 percent of votes.

Argentina has 28,861,196 registered voters. Voting is compulsory for citizens between 18 and 70 years of age.

Seven Presidential contenders competed in today’s elections.