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Argentines will go to the polls on October 25th in order to elect their country’s next president, ushering in a post-Kirchner era.
The two frontrunners are the center-left ruling party's candidate, Buenos Aires Governor Daniel Scioli, and right-wing businessman Mauricio Macri, who has been the mayor of Buenos Aires City for the past eight years.
An opinion poll by Poliarquía published on 2 August suggested Scioli will attract 37.6% support, with his closest rival, Mauricio Macri from the centre-right opposition Propuesta Republicana (PRO) winning 30.7%.
To win outright in October, a candidate needs 45 percent of votes cast or 40 percent with a 10-point spread over the second place candidate.
As the elections draw closer, teleSUR English takes a look at the two presidential candidate hopefuls.
Daniel Scioli
Daniel Scioli is the front-runner from the ruling party for Argentina's presidential election.
Scioli, the left-leaning governor of Buenos Aires, previously ran as the vice-presidential candidate alongside Nestor Kircher, President Cristina Fernandez's husband and predecessor.
As governor of Buenos Aires, the 58- year old Scioli enacted several transformative measures, such as imposing taxes on powerful economic sectors, including agriculture and the cable TV industry.
Under the Scioli administration, Buenos Aires became one of the first provinces to endorse a non-punishable abortion protocol as well as the introduction of a bill allowing gay couples the right to adopt, which served as a model for national legislation.
Since the launch of his political campaign, Scioli has emphasized investment in strategic sectors such as industrial infrastructure, education and knowledge-based industries.
The economy will be a key battleground in the election campaign.
Scioli has repeatedly defended the government’s current economic model and insisted there would be no significant shift in its monetary policy.
Scioli, who who recently received the official endorsement of current President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is likely to continue promoting policies implemented under President Fernandez.
A poll by Raúl Aragón & Asociados in July found that 53 percent of those surveyed wanted the next government to keep all or most of the current government’s policies.
Mauricio Macri
Meanwhile, throughout his electoral campaign Macri has the current government’s fiscal policy and signaled that if elected he would introduce economic policy changes.
In particular, Macri has vowed to promote free market economic reforms as well negotiate with "holdout” creditors, the “vulture fund” minority bondholders who rejected the debt restructuring that followed Argentina’s debt default in 2002.
In effect, Macri has promised a return to neoliberal economics and a reversal of the Kirchner era’s redistributionist policies.
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