Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri will have to face a run-off in his re-election bid after falling short of a majority on Sunday.
The conservative first-term mayor led with nearly 47 percent of the vote. Second, at nearly 28 percent, was populist Argentine President Cristina Fernandez’s hand-picked candidate, Argentine Senator Daniel Filmus. Leftist filmmaker Fernando “Pino” Solanas got nearly 13 percent and several others split the rest with 95 percent of the votes counted.
The vote clears the field for a straight-on contest on July 31 between the president’s model of governing and the alternative that Macri, one of her most prominent opponents, has provided for the capital.
PHOTO: EPA
Macri called for unity in his victory speech, but defiantly told the national government that “this free city won’t be traded or sold” for political gain.
“If we deserve something, it’s not because we went down on our knees, but because we put forth our ideas with our heads held high and with dignity,” Macri said.
Macri had considered running for president in October’s national elections, but ultimately chose the safer challenge, with Fernandez’s popularity -increasing in recent months.
She then chose the leftist Filmus to run against Macri and involved herself so personally in the campaign that the race became mostly about whether voters wanted to bring her populist model of governing into the capital’s city hall.
Filmus declared Sunday’s result “a triumph.”
He urged voters to form a new majority in the second round that would politically unify the city and country, and make Buenos Aires once again “not only the richest city, but the most just.”
Buenos Aires’ 2.4 million voters represent nearly 9 percent of Argentina’s voting population.
Filmus served as education secretary under former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez’s late husband and predecessor, but came up outside the rank-and-file of the Kirchners’ wing of the Peronist party.
Macri is a civil engineer who jumped into politics after being president of the popular Boca Juniors soccer club.
“Macri will make the city more secure, more efficient,” said businessman Marcero Mitre. “I always vote for the conservatives.”
Other voters said Buenos Aires could get more resources if the national and capital governments worked together.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing