Last Sunday, Argentina elected the successor to Alberto Fernández, president from 2019 to 2023, after a three-month electoral process, including primaries, first and second rounds, marked by unprecedented media coverage, judging by the number of foreign journalists in the country in 2019. the last days. The eccentric Javier Milei, a libertarian and anarcho-capitalist candidate who promises to implode the Central Bank and dollarize the country’s economy, was mainly responsible for attracting national and international attention. On the other side is Sergio Massa, career politician and Minister of Economy of the current Peronist, centre-left government.
With 35 million Argentines eligible to vote, election day was marked by moments of voting for the two candidates and scattered accusations from both teams about possible fraud surrounding the ballots.
At the end of the morning, thousands of people, hundreds of journalists, including the DN Report, and dozens of police vehicles rushed to the National Technological University, in the Almagro neighborhood of Buenos Aires, to vote for Javier Milei, candidate for the 2011 elections , to follow. the ultra-right coalition La Libertad Avanza in the Argentine presidential elections.
A cult figure to his supporters, Milei was received like a football team. “See, see, feel, Milei is president,” the economist’s supporters shouted in unison.
“It is afraid, the casta is afraid, the casta is afraid,” the crowd continued, making the usually quiet Avenida Medrano on Sunday look like Bombonera, home of Boca Juniors, or Monumental, the venue of River Plate, as the candidate smiled and threw his closed fist in the air.
“We are very calm, we have done everything we could do, everything that needed to be done, we have done. Now let the polls speak, the moment is theirs,” said Milei, the second most voted in the first round, for a month. ago, with 30% of the votes, next to Karina Milei, his younger sister, whom he calls “boss”.
“We are very satisfied, we have worked hard to face a campaign of fear, a dirty campaign against us,” he concluded, before returning to Hotel Libertador, today the “bunker” of the “mileistas”.
Sergio Massa, the candidate for the center-left Unión Por La Patria, was much more discreet but nevertheless attracted enormous popular and media attention. He voted at a school in Tigre, the Buenos Aires region where he lives and where he has held municipal positions. .
“I voted together with my family, with great love for Argentina and with the pride that I have contributed to strengthening democracy. We have a huge opportunity to build a better future for our children. I ask everyone to vote with hope,” said the current Minister of Economic Affairs.
Despite the economic crisis of the government he participated in, he earned 37% of the votes in the first round and promised that, if he won, “the Argentina of national unity is coming”.
However, Malena Galmarini, Massa’s wife, with an extensive political career and now chairman of Argentina’s government-owned Water and Basic Sanitation company, raised suspicions about the vote. “They accused us of fraud, but they are the ones who are breaking or trying to break the rules. They are tearing up ballots everywhere. It is an organized action, we are talking to the electoral court about it.”
On Milei’s side, the accusations started 48 hours before voting day. Lilia Lemoine, deputy of the Libertarian Party, make-up artist, influencer, cosplayer and image consultant for Milei, went to vote before the polls opened, at 8 a.m., to offer herself as election inspector, following complaints about possible fraud by the candidate of La Libertad Avanza on the eve of the right to vote.
And Patrícia Bullrich, third most voted in the first round and supporter of Milei, also denounced what was called “irregularities in the ballots”. “In many places in the province of Buenos Aires and other parts of the country, bulletins appear without numbers, changed numbers and still bulletins from PASO,” referring to the open, simultaneous and mandatory primaries in August.
More than 86,000 armed forces were deployed to take care of the 106,160 voting tables at 16,888 schools and other places in this second round of elections.
Throughout the day, the local press also followed the vote for the outgoing president and vice president, Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner, both supporters of Massa, and Maurício Macri, Fernández’s predecessor and Milei’s supporter.
Source: DN
