Defeated Argentine presidential hopeful Sergio Massa on Wednesday unveiled key policy demands and said his 5 million supporters would vote in next month’s run-off election based on how the two remaining candidates respond.
Massa, whose plans ranged from cracking down on drug-runners to scrapping income tax for workers, stopped short of endorsing either ruling party candidate Daniel Scioli or his conservative rival, Mauricio Macri.
“The stance that the two candidates take vis-a-vis these proposals will define where more than 5 million voters place their support,” he said.
Earlier, Scioli’s hunt for swing voters suffered a blow when two of Massa’s top allies said they would not vote for him.
Macri has the momentum early in the race to the Nov. 22 run-off after his strong showing in Sunday’s ballot defied polls and shocked the ruling Front for Victory party, which had eyed a win in the first round.
Cordoba Governor Jose Manuel De la Sota, a senior figure in Massa’s alliance, said the leftist government of Argentine President Cristina Fernandez had been “anti-federal and authoritarian” in style.
Former Argentine minister of economy and production Roberto Lavagna said he wanted to see “change.”
“Kirchnerismo has done no good for the country,” De la Sota told reporters, referring to the name given to the leftist populism of Fernandez and her late husband and predecessor, former Argentine president Nestor Kirchner. “It has gotten drunk on power.”
The policy blueprint leaned heavily on Massa’s first-round campaign pledges and included scrapping the income tax for workers, removing hefty taxes on corn and wheat exports, tackling narco-gangs and stamping out corruption.
“Between change and continuity, change has already won,” Massa said. “Now what we need to construct is intelligent change.”
Massa allies on Monday said that Macri would find more common ground with the policy priorities than Scioli and that the document would be a tacit “wink” in Macri’s direction.
Although the lawmaker is in a strong position to influence the outcome of the run-off, he has ducked playing kingmaker.
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