A first victory of Scioli, but not yet enough to ensure Presidency

ARGENTINA - In Brief 10 Aug 2015 by Esteban Fernandez Medrano

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With close to 95% of total votes counted, the results of yesterday’s primary elections are clear and not too different from what the polls hinted in the previous weeks. Scioli emerged as the “winner” but not necessarily strong enough to ensure a first round victory in the October elections, depending therefore, in a hypothetical second round, on the behavior of third-party voters. With few exceptions, such as the official candidate for Governor in the Province of Buenos Aires, these Simultaneous and Obligatory Primary Elections presented no serious doubts regarding which candidates would represent their parties in the upcoming elections. For all practical purposed these primaries acted more as a general poll ahead of the elections. As expected, the three presidential candidates that managed to attract most votes in this elections were Daniel Scioli (30.1%), Mauricio Macri (24.3%) followed, further behind, by Sergio Massa (14.0%). While Kirchnerist’s celebrate the more than 14% difference between Scioli and Macri, it should be noted that Scioli did not compete against any other FpV contesters (once Randazzo was asked by the President to step down), while Macri run against Sanz and Carrió, and Massa against De la Sota. Therefore when comparing the spread between Scioli’s Frente para la Victoria (38.3%) and Macri’s Cambiemos (30.1%), that difference narrows down to 8.2%. An important difference still, but it is smaller than the feared 10% and Scioli did not manage to cross the 40% hurdle. This is important given that, if Scioli wants to win in the first round in October he needs either to obtain more than 45% of total votes or at least 40% but with more than 10p.p. differ...