Argentina has embraced the extreme right and the Peronist Sergio Massa has lost the opportunity to reach the Casa Rosada, an ambition that he has pursued since his youth and that he already tried to achieve in 2015. The candidate of Unión por la Patria and current Minister of Economy has left to acknowledge defeat around eight at night, before the official results were announced. With 95% counted, the Peronist obtained 44% of the votes compared to the 56% achieved by the far-right Javier Milei, who will be the president of the Argentines from December 10. “Tomorrow we are going to launch a democratic transition and liaison mechanism so that Argentines have no doubts or uncertainty regarding the normal economic, political and institutional functioning,” Massa said from the campaign center in the city of Buenos Aires. Aires, and has stated that for him “a stage ends” in his political life.
“I have contacted Javier Milei to congratulate him because he is the president that the majority elected for the next four years. The most important thing that we have to leave to the Argentines is the message that coexistence, dialogue and respect for peace in the face of so much violence and disqualification is the best path we can take,” he said from the stage, where he He has been accompanied by his family and Peronist leaders, such as his running mate, Agustín Rossi, or the elected governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Axel Kicillof.
Massa didn’t have it easy. For more than a year, the current Minister of Economy has been managing the economy of a country that is not growing, in which year-on-year inflation has exceeded 142%, where 40% of the inhabitants live in poverty and with minimal reserves. As head of the portfolio, he has had to renegotiate payments with the International Monetary Fund for a debt of 44,000 million dollars that President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) took on. He was, therefore, an unlikely candidate.
A 51-year-old lawyer, Massa has a political career spanning more than 30 years. He began as a member of the liberal right-wing Union of the Democratic Center (UCD). From there he jumped to Peronism and had the ability to adapt to the times. He was a Menemist, then a Duhaldist, a Kirchnerist and an anti-Kirchnerist. He founded his party, the Frente Renovador, and ran in the 2015 presidential elections; He came third and aligned himself with Kirchnerism again. With him as president, Peronism would have taken a turn towards the center-right. He will now have to reposition himself in the opposition.
“There were two paths. We choose to defend the security system in the hands of the State, promote education and public health as central values, we choose to defend the national industry, Argentine labor, our SMEs, workers with rights because it is the best way to build prosperity, upward social mobility and progress for our nation,” said Massa. Then he added: “The Argentines chose another path and from tomorrow the responsibility and the task of providing certainty, of transmitting guarantees about the political, social and economic functioning belongs to the new president and we hope that he will do so.”
During the campaign, many wondered what the Peronist minister could do differently if he arrived at the Casa Rosada to save a plummeting economy. The August primaries left him in third place, in one of the worst elections for Peronism in recent years. In the first round he came back, he added 9.5 million votes and came first with 37% of the support. The average of the latest polls analyzed by EL PAÍS did not predict a clear victory.
The Peronist, however, had managed to excite part of the electorate. In part, the support he received from insiders and outsiders is explained by the candidate in front of him, an ultra-liberal economist who has challenged many of the consensuses built in 40 years of democracy, such as public education and health and the condemnation of terrorism. State during the last dictatorship, recognized by justice. Massa promised a Government of “national unity”, a stronger and more transparent State and to be the guarantor of the values attacked by Milei.
“I continue to believe that Argentina needs State policy agreements,” he assured from the stage, where he was not accompanied by any of the two main figures of the ruling party: neither the president, Alberto Fernández, nor the vice president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, both facing each other. for months and away from the campaign. “From a personal point of view, I tried to give the best of myself. I did it convinced because I deeply love Argentina, with the same intensity with which I love my children,” he said. In Argentina, an unknown scenario is opening up.
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