The results were met by deathly silence at Scioli headquarters, where minutes before supporters had been celebrating what was expected to be a convincing lead or even outright victory by governor of Buenos Aires province.
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Scioli, the mayor of Buenos Aires, is a former football executive.
Earlier polls had shown the leading candidate to succeed the Kirchners would be Daniel Scioli, who served as vice president at the beginning of the Kirchners’ reign.
The election will shape how Argentina, Latin America’s third largest economy, will tackle economic woes such as double-digit inflation, precariously low foreign reserves and a sovereign debt default.
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Argentines weighed continuity versus a financial overhaul on Sunday as they picked the successor to President Cristina Fernandez, a polarizing leader who along with her late husband dominated national politics for 12 years and rewrote the country’s social contract.
“The document will be easier for (Macri’s) “Let’s Change” alliance to find common ground with than the ruling party.” the source said.
Under Argentine election law, Scioli has to take more than 45 percent of the vote, or 40 percent with a margin of ten points over the runner-up to win outright in the first round.
“Argentina will vote to continue the same way or a change in its history”.
His tone, however, indicated that he expected a run-off, as he called upon independent voters and “those who chose other options” to join his party’s ranks from now on.
“The truth is I don’t like any of the candidates”, said Anai Roy, a college student who said she would make a choice in the polling booth.
In campaigning for the general election, Scioli failed to read the appetite for change by not disassociating himself from Fernandez de Kirchner, according to Germano.
The question now is whether Peronism will combine forces, such as Massa siding with Scioli, to win the runoff election, or if it will wait for Macri to win and then become a major opposition force with control of Congress, said MacDougall.
Pre-election polls showed that Macri, the conservative mayor of Buenos Aires, has stronger support among the middle-class.
Scioli will seek to exploit a perception among many voters that Macri, the son of a construction magnate, would restore the kind of right-wing policies widely blamed for triggering a deep economic crisis in 2001-2002, when millions fell into poverty.
Continuity of the administration of Kirchner, constitutionally barred from running after eight years in office, has been the main thrust of Scioli’s campaign, although he attempted to break from her divisive political style.
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Dissident Peronist Sergio Massa received 21.34 percent of the vote; Nicolas del Caño, of the Frente de Izquierda, got 3.27 percent; Progressive Margarita Stolbizer garnered 2.54 percent; and former President Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, of Compromiso Federal, received 1.67 percent of the vote.
