Home > Argentine presidential election, 2003

For the first time since democracy returns (1983), the Partido Justicialista has failed to agree on his president candidate. For that reason three strong candidates from this party were on the ballots ( Menem, Kirchner and Rodriguez Saa), none of them officially supported by the PJ.

Due to the December 20 political collapse and De La Rua declination, the Unión Cívica Radical party (traditionally the oposition of the PJ) popularity has reached the lower level in all his history. For that reason two strong former partisans from the UCR party have founded two parties based on their personalities ( Elisa Carrió has founded a Central left-wing party, and López Murphy has founded a right-wing one).

With this scenario, five strong candidates were pratically tied in all the previous polls, making a very agressive election. Finally Menem was the first in the final result, but with not enought margin to be elected at the first round. So a runoff voting against Kirchner was needed. After his two periods Menem was very low in popularity, and anticipating an assured lost (the polls were 70%-30% for Kirchner), he finally declined. So Kircnher became president immediatly.

1 Results

2 See also

• Politics of Argentina
• List of political parties in Argentina

3 External link

• http://www.towsa.com/andy/ Andy Tow´s Election Atlas: Presidential, Legislative and Gubernatorial elections in Argentina since 1983.