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American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Argentina: Macri wins

Mauricio Macri, age 56, the non-Kirchnerist candidate, won yesterday’s runoff election by 2 percentage points. Earlier in the evening he was winning by nearly eight points.

MacriScioli

The Telegraph has a profile.

Macri will be will be heading a nation where a monolithic Kirchnerism dominates the institutions, as it has for the past twelve years. That will be the challenge to any changes he may want to implement. CNBC’s headline, Argentina’s Macri ousts leftist Peronists from power, is entirely inaccurate. Speaking in his first news conference after winning the election,

Mr Macri said that “currency controls are a mistake, not providing information and statistics and not having an independent Central Bank are things we’re going to correct”.

Reactions vary from the very rosy to the somber. Here is a roundup:

Mary O’Grady looks at Argentina’s Political Earthquake. Mauricio Macri, the new president, pledges to end the conflict of the Kirchner years.

The big winner in this election is political pluralism. The Kirchners entered national politics in 2003, during a period of great economic hardship. Over time they tried to replicate the strategy used by the Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez to destroy institutional checks on presidential power and to install a one-party state. The election outcome means that the nation has managed to repel this authoritarian power-grab. But Mrs. Kirchner also hands Mr. Macri a fiscal and monetary mess in a period of global economic weakness and during a recession in Brazil, Argentina’s lead trading partner. He will have one shot at creating a comprehensive set of policies to inspire confidence, the sooner the better.

Jason Poblete believes Center-Right Argentina Win Could Impact Politically Beyond the Southern Cone

The socialists in Latin America are apoplectic as well as concerned. Macri, for example, is no fan of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and he said as much during the campaign. While I doubt Macri will publicly chastise the left in the region, nor do I expect an immediate break, it will not be business as usual. Socialist regimes in Brazil, Cuba, Nicaragua, Ecuador, and a few other Western Hemisphere left-wing outpost will surely need to re-adjust their foreign policy toward Argentina. Maybe, just maybe, Macri and his policy advisors will slowly tear to shreds the ALBA, CELAC, and other cockamamie regional economic and political schemes that have set back several nations in the region.

I highly recommemd Gaurav Sharma’s analysis at Forbes, which must be read in full, but here are a couple of prargraphs,

Macri is likely to bring the charge de affairs back to the country’s ministry of foreign affairs. The conciliatory tone might even involve participating in the hitherto off-limits oil and gas exploration in Falkland Islands waters.

Away from the contentious side issue, it is the direction of Argentina’s shale exploration that is of much bigger significance in a global context. Earlier this year, the US Energy Information Administration noted that excluding the US and Canada, only Argentina and China happen to be producing either natural gas from shale formations or crude oil from tight formations (tight oil) at an international level.

How Argentina’s promising Neuquen Basin develops further would have a massive bearing on the economy. The Argentine Energy Institute says macroeconomic stability is essential for attracting foreign direct investment during the current oil and gas market downturn.

Macri has promised to bring about just that, even making a pledge to enact laws promoting investment and a more credible framework for the oil and gas sector. Restoring credibility, much of which has been lost under Kirchner, would be an entirely different matter.
. . .
The troubling situation requires radical action from Macri. More specifically, if Neuquen Basin’s oil and gas activity has to thrive, the new government needs to be bolder in making the giant Vaca Muerta shale play more viable.

HACER is hopeful, #Argentina Adiós Cristina: La esperanza retorna de la mano de la república.

Carlos Alberto Montaner is very optimistic: He sees the beginning of the end for populism in Argentina (in Spanish), and expects it will influence the upcoming Venezuelan election, and Brazil’s and Chile’s politics.

Eamonn MacDonagh, in a string of tweets last night, posted succinct and insightful analysis: He’s happy for Macri’s victory “for what it stops, the definitive end of the attempt to install a regime in Argentina and put an end to liberal democracy in Argentina.”

MacDonagh mentions,

I am deeply skeptical of any measures that need carrying out through Mercosur/OAS/UN and the like.

As for the Nisman investigation, it currently stands as a suicide investigation, not a murder investigation.

Macri has his work cut out for him. Let’s wish him luck.

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Argentina: Eamonn’s forecast

Following is Eamonn MacDonagh‘s post-election forecast, in the form of a Twitter string,

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Argentina: #FIFAarrests in 22 tweets

Eamonn MacDonagh summarizes it perfectly:

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