Who are the 10 candidates for president of Argentina?
Argentina will hold its primary elections this Sunday to pick the candidates who will run in the presidential elections next Oct. 27. Here are the 10 contenders:
1. MAURICIO MACRI (Together for Change)
Mauricio Macri was born in the Buenos Aires city of Tandil in 1959.
A civil engineer, he owes his fortune to his father, the Italian Franco Macri, in whose companies he made his career.
In 1995 he was elected president of the soccer club Boca Juniors, a position he held until 2008.
He got into politics in 2003, when he founded Commitment to Change. In 2005 he created the Republican Proposal (PRO) party, with which he won a seat in the national legislature. Two years later he was elected mayor of Buenos Aires and reelected in 2011.
In the 2015 presidential elections he defeated the Peronist Daniel Scioli in the second round.
2. ALBERTO FERNANDEZ (Everyone’s Front)
Attorney and university professor Fernandez was born in Buenos Aires in 1959.
He held technical positions during the governments of the radical Raul Alfonsin (1983-1989) and of the Peronist Carlos Menem (1989-1999).
Halfway through the 1990s he began his political career in the Peronism of the capital.
He was Cabinet chief from 2003 to 2008 under the governments of Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007) and Cristina Fernandez (2007-2015).
3. ROBERTO LAVAGNA (Federal Consensus)
Economist Roberto Lavagna was born in the Argentine capital in 1942. He worked in the private sector and held technical positions during the third term of Juan Domingo Peron (1973-1974).
Lavagna got back in the picture in 1985 as secretary of industry and foreign trade during the government of Radical Raul Alfonsin.
In 2000, during the government of the Radical Fernando de la Rua (1999-2001), he was ambassador to the European Union , the United Nations and the World Trade Organization .
After the fall of De la Rua and amid one of the worst economic crises within living memory in Argentina, he took charge of the Economy Ministry in April 2002, during the transitional government of Peronist Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003).
Heterodox by nature, he succeeded in turning the failing Argentine economy around. During his time in office, which continued during the Kirchner presidency, he also crafted the largest restructuring of the public debt in history.
He ran for president in 2007 and came in third.
4. JOSE LUIS ESPERT (Awakening Front)
The economist Jose Luis Espert was born in 1961 in the Buenos Aires city of Pergamino.
With neoliberal ideas and as director of the Libertarian Party , he won fame as an economic analyst permanently consulted by local media.
5. JUAN JOSE GOMEZ CENTURION (NOS)
The retired army major and veteran of the Falkland Islands War (1982), Juan Jose Gomez Centurion was born in 1958 in Buenos Aires.
In 1987 and 1988 he took part in military uprisings during the Alfonsin government. He retired from the army in 1997, after which he worked in the private sector.
When Macri became president, he was designated Argentina’s customs director and in December 2017 was named vice president of the Argentine state-run Banco de la Nacion, a position he resigned last March to create the rightist political force NOS.
6. ALEJANDRO BIONDINI (Patriotic Front)
Born in 1956 in Buenos Aires, Alejandro Biondini is a politician with ties to the nationalist sectors.
He started his political career under Peron. In 1990 he created the Nationalist Workers Party, later dubbed the New Triumph Party, which, because of its neo-Nazi ideas and anti-Semitism, he was often blocked from taking part in elections. In 2014 he finally managed to legalize the Bandera Vecinal party.
7. NICOLAS DEL CAÑO (Workers’ Left Front Unity)
Nicolas Caño was born in 1980 in the city of Cordoba. As a student, he began his work with the Socialist Workers Movement and soon afterwards joined the Socialist Workers Party.
In 2011 he was candidate for governor of the western province of Mendoza. In 2013 he was elected lawmaker in the national legislature, and in 2015 ran for the presidency, coming in fourth.
8. MANUELA CASTAÑEIRA (New Movement towards Socialism)
Manuela Castañeira, 34, the only female candidate for the presidency in these elections, was born in the city of Parana in the northeastern province of Entre Rios and graduated with a degree in sociology from the University of Buenos Aires.
She ran for president in the 2015 primaries but got only 0.46 percent of the vote.
9. JOSE ANTONIO ROMERO FERIS (National Autonomist Party)
Jose Antonio “Pocho” Romero Feris is the representative of the National Autonomist Party, a conservative liberal organization founded in 1874 that governed Argentina from that year until 1916.
An attorney by profession, he was born in the northeastern city of Corrientes in 1941. In 1983 he was elected governor of Corrientes province. After serving his four-year term in office, he was elected lawmaker and then senator in the national legislature, until 2001. In 1994 he was a member of the Constituent Convention, but was opposed to constitutional reform.
10. RAUL HUMBERTO ALBARRACIN (MAV)
Attorney Raul Humberto Albarracin was born in the city of Cordoba. He was one of the founders of the conservative Recrear party and also belonged to PRO, the party headed by Macri. He then joined the Neighbors Action Movement, a party founded in Cordoba in 1998 and for which he was its presidential nominee in the 2015 primaries. EFE-EPA nk/cd
