Macri promised that a “marvellous” new era was starting for the country after he won the run-off vote on Sunday.
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Argentine President-elect Mauricio Macri named former JP Morgan executive and ex-central bank chief Alfonso Prat-Gay his finance minister on Wednesday in a sign that he will move quickly to restore the bank’s autonomy and free up the economy.
Macri’s victory marks an end to 12 years of left-leaning government by the ruling party, the Front for the Victory, which came to power in 2003 under the presidency of Nestor Kirchner (2003-2007) and continued under his successor and wife Cristina Fernandez, whose second term ends this December.
Many Argentine farmers who opposed Fernandez’s restrictions on their access to foreign markets applauded Macri’s election. The two-time mayor of Buenos Aires won 51.4 per cent of the vote, with more than 99 per cent of the ballots counted, according to electoral authorities.
Relations with the United States are also likely to improve under Mr. Macri, who will happily tone down Mrs. Kirchner’s pointless anti-American rhetoric and reach out to both the USA government and private business.
Analysts also cautioned that Macri may struggle to get his reforms past hostile lawmakers.
Macri is the first president, since the return of democracy in 1983, to not belong to one of the two main parties in Argentina, the Radicalists or the Peronists.
Kirchner clashed with London in the territorial dispute over the Falkland Islands, known in Spanish as Las Malvinas. He also said he plans to keep some big nationalized companies, like Aerolineas Argentinas, under government control, but he also promised to steer a centrist economic course and work with, instead of against, the private sector. Local importers say the country’s central bank owes them more than $9 billion for goods they have already brought into the country.
But Guillermo Juarez, 25, said he voted for Scioli “because of everything they say about Macri – that he will take away support for working people and cut social welfare programs”.
Voting earlier, Macri told a crowd of reporters and supporters: “It is a historic day that will change our lives”.
Scioli conceded defeat on Sunday.
“I have defended my ideas and our achievements with much conviction (but) the results show a definitive tendency”, he said.
Venezuela’s opposition MUD coalition hailed Macri’s victory as an encouraging sign that change could follow in their country too.
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After a 2001 financial crisis in which Argentina was bailed out by the International Monetary Fund, the Kirchners presided over a spectacular turnaround. Mr Macri will be sworn in on Dec 10.
