Government candidate Sergio Massa is surprisingly ahead in the presidential election in Argentina. The economics minister from the left-wing Unión por la Patria (Union for the Fatherland) received around 36 percent of the votes, as the electoral office announced after counting 80 percent of the votes.
The libertarian populist Javier Milei, who was previously considered the favorite, came in second with 30 percent. Massa and Milei are therefore likely to compete against each other in a runoff election on November 19th. The future president takes office on December 10th.
South America’s second largest economy is in a deep economic crisis: the inflation rate is 138 percent, and around 40 percent of people in the once rich country live below the poverty line. Argentina suffers from a bloated state apparatus, low industrial productivity and a large shadow economy that deprives the state of much tax revenue. The national currency, the peso, continues to lose value against the US dollar and the mountain of debt is constantly growing.