Jorge Macri after the first round on October 22 in Buenos Aires (Argentina).MATIAS MARTIN CAMPAYA (EFE)
The surname Macri will once again rule the city of Buenos Aires. Jorge Macri, cousin of former President Mauricio Macri, will be the next head of government in the Argentine capital. Macri, former mayor of a wealthy municipality in the urban area surrounding the city, became this Tuesday the latest heir to a 15-year hegemony inaugurated by his cousin when he won the office of mayor of Buenos Aires for the first time in 2007. During the National alliance “Together for Change” suffers from exclusion from the second presidential round, Macrismo retains power in its place of origin.
The mayoralty of the city of Buenos Aires was in limbo after Sunday’s elections. Jorge Macri had received 49.6% of the vote, four tenths away from winning the first round. The second round should have been against the Peronist candidate Leandro Santoro, who achieved 32.20%. Santoro decided on Tuesday to withdraw from the race to “concentrate forces” on his party’s presidential campaign against ultra Javier Milei.
“A realistic reading of the election results, together with Javier Milei’s explicit support for Jorge Macri, makes us think that it would be stupid to force a runoff,” Santoro announced a statement. “We believe that the right strategy that this historic moment requires of us is to focus our efforts on defending democracy against the authoritarian threat and helping Sergio Massa win in the city of Buenos Aires and become president of the Nation is elected.”
Peronism has prioritized the presidential campaign. Santoro had little chance of salvaging an election in which his rival had a 17-point lead, more than 300,000 votes, and needed just 6,000 more to win the mayor’s office. Macri was able to reap the rewards: 14% of the city voted for the far-right candidate Ramiro Marra, who came third. Marra has remained silent since the election, but his political boss Javier Milei was tempted to support Macri in a second round and congratulated him on Sunday’s results.
The second round of voting in the city was scheduled to take place on the same day as the second round of the presidential election, and Peronism interpreted that a campaign in which the far right allied with the traditional right would harm their race for the presidency. “Santoro’s decision is very courageous and sensible,” celebrated the Peronist candidate Sergio Massa, who won last Sunday with 36.6% and will define the position against Milei (29.9%) on November 19th.
Jorge Macri just received a huge inheritance. He will not only become the head of government of the country’s largest city, but also the leader of his party with the greatest visibility on the national map. After the election year, the Alliance of Together for Change will govern the capital and ten of the 23 provinces, although only two of them with candidates from the Republican Proposal, the PRO, Mauricio Macri’s party: Chubut in the south and Entre Ríos, on the border with Uruguay . Together for Change’s power map changes after the electoral defeat. Patricia Bullrich, the conservative hardliner who retained her candidacy after the primaries, came in third place with 23.8% of the vote, leaving the parties that make up her alliance to debate privately whether they support the far right or Peronism Presidential campaign will support elections.
Bullrich had ousted moderate Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the current mayor of Buenos Aires, who had been Mauricio Macris Delfin when he left the city to take the presidency in 2015. Macri did not let him choose his successor himself and forced his cousin on him. The controversy escalated beyond nepotism. Jorge Macri, the mayor on leave of Vicente López, a wealthy municipality in Buenos Aires province, failed to meet a basic requirement for governing the city: living in it. The city constitution requires candidates to live there at least five years “prior to the date of the election.” Jorge Macri was admitted because a court considered the years he spent in his youth in Buenos Aires to be good.
“I would like to thank again everyone who trusted us, I accept the commitment that this means,” wrote Jorge Macri on his social networks after learning of his opponent’s resignation. “Four years of work and changes await us. “We are ready to begin a new era together.”