General elections were held in Argentina on 25 October 2015 to elect the President and National Congress, and followed primary elections which were held on 9 August 2015. A second round of voting between the two leading candidates took place on 22 November, after surprisingly close results forced a runoff.Es oficial: hay fecha para las PASO y las elecciones generales Diario Registrado, 2 September 2014 On the first runoff voting ever held for an Argentine Presidential Election, Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri narrowly defeated Front for Victory candidate and Buenos Aires Province Governor Daniel Scioli with 51% of the vote. Macri's vote count of nearly 13 million votes made it the highest number of votes any candidate has ever received in Argentinian history until Javier Milei's victory in the 2023 presidential election. He took office on 10 December, making him the first freely elected president in almost a century who was not either a Radical or a Peronist.
Macri performed better among higher-income provinces in the central area of the country, while Scioli performed strongly in poorer provinces in the northwest, the northeast and Patagonia.
Background President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was re-elected in 2011. As the Constitution of Argentina does not allow more than two consecutive terms, several politicians from the Front for Victory (FPV) speculated about a constitutional amendment to allow unlimited re-elections. This idea was heavily resisted by the opposition parties, and the FPV could not reach the required two-thirds majority in Congress. The mid-term elections in 2013 ended the FPV's hope for a constitutional amendment after they failed to win the necessary supermajority.
Electoral system The election of the president was carried out using the ballotage system, a modified version of the two-round system in which a candidate can win the presidency in the first round either by receiving 45% of the vote, or by receiving 40% of the vote and finishing at least 10 percentage points ahead of the second-place candidate. Voting is compulsory for citizens between 18 and 70 years old. Suffrage was also extended to 16- and 17-year-olds, though without compulsory voting.Voto de los Jóvenes de 16 y 17 años0 Camara Nacional Electoral
There are a total of 257 seats of the Chamber of Deputies, elected from 24 electoral districts–the 23 provinces, plus the federal district of Buenos Aires, which its own executive and legislature and is represented in the national Congress like all other provinces. The number of seats are distributed in relation to the population of the province. In order to be in concordance with the "one-third female" law enforces that one-third of the overall seats in the Chamber of Deputies are female. The 130 seats of the Chamber of Deputies up for election were elected from 24 multi-member constituencies based on the 23 provinces and Buenos Aires. Seats were allocated using the D'Hondt method of proportional representation, with an electoral threshold of 3%.Chamber of Deputies: Electoral system IPU
The 24 seats in the Senate up for election were elected in three-seat constituencies using the closed list system. Each district is represented by three senatorial seats. Each party is allowed to register up to two candidates; one of those registered must be female. The party receiving the most votes wins two seats, and the second-placed party won one.Argentine Republic: Election for Senado (Senate) IFES The third senatorial seat was established in the Constitution of 1994 in order to better represent the largest minority in each district.
Parties and coalitions provided their own ballot papers, which voters placed in sealed envelopes. However, voters were able to cut ballot papers up and place different sections from different parties inside the envelope if they wanted to vote for different candidates or lists for different posts. Being under a Federal system, it is possible for different provinces to use different systems. In Buenos Aires and Salta electronic voting machines were used to print out a single unified ballot, with voters able to select different candidates and parties on a touch screen. Other municipalities such as Bariloche opted for a non-electronic single unified ballot. Opposition candidates, including Sergio Massa, Mauricio Macri and Margarita Stolbizer called for the nationwide implementation of a unified ballot and/or electronic voting, though Massa in particular was more cautious, saying it was more realistic for such a system to be implemented by 2017. The authority in charge of regulating elections rejected changing the system within 2015 since they claimed it would be too short term to implement the changes and explain to the public how the new system works.
Candidates General election Six candidates received at least 1.5% of the vote in the primary elections and were able to contest the general election.
Cambiemos Mauricio Macri, from the Republican Proposal, was the mayor of Buenos Aires city. Many smaller parties had created a coalition the previous year, the Broad Front UNEN. Elisa Carrió of the Civic Coalition left it to join Macri. An internal congress of the Radical Civic Union decided to do so as well, and proposing Ernesto Sanz as their precandidate. UNEN was thus disbanded, and the three candidates ran for the coalition Cambiemos. Margarita Stolbizer refused to join the coalition with Macri, and ran in a separate party instead.
Cambiemos for President for Vice President 5th Chief of Government of Buenos Aires(2007–2015) National Senator for Buenos Aires City(2013–2016) Radical Civic Union Democratic Progressive Party Conservative People's Party Civic Coalition ARI
Republican Proposal Faith Party Dialogue Party
Front for Victory
Initially, the FPV had several pre-candidates to the presidency, but only Daniel Scioli and Florencio Randazzo had a good reception in the opinion polls. Scioli was resisted by factions of the party that did not consider him truly loyal to Kirchner. All the minor candidates resigned when Kirchner asked them to do so. Randazzo resigned as well some weeks before the primary elections, leaving Scioli as the sole precandidate of the FPV. Randazzo did not accept to run for governor of the Buenos Aires province, which had primary elections between minister Aníbal Fernández and Julián Domínguez. Fernández won the local primary elections.
Front for Victory for President for Vice President Governor of Buenos Aires(2007–2015) Legal and Technical Secretary of the Presidency(2003–2015)Parties in the coalition:
Justicialist Party Intransigent Party Federal Party Communist Party Humanist Party Broad Front Party Victory Party Solidary Party
Kolina Encounter for Democracy and Equality FORJA Concertation Party HACER Front for Social Progress Party for Popular Sovereignty
Other candidates
in alphabetical order Workers' Left FrontUnited for a New AlternativeFederal CommitmentProgresistas for Presidentfor Vice Presidentfor Presidentfor Vice Presidentfor Presidentfor Vice Presidentfor Presidentfor Vice President National Deputy for Mendoza(2013–2015) National Deputy for Buenos Aires(2015–2016) National Deputy for Buenos Aires(2013–2017) Mayor of Salta (2015–2019) National Senator for San Luis (2005–present) National Senator for San Luis (2001–2017) National Deputy for Buenos Aires(1997–2005, 2009–2017) Union leader of Asociación Mutual Mercantil ArgentinaParties in the coalition: Socialist Left Workers' Party Socialist Workers' PartyParties in the coalition:
Integration and Development Movement Christian Democratic Party Popular Union UNIR Constitutional Nationalist Party Light Blue and White Union Third Position Party Federal Renewal Party
Commitment and Effort for Triumph Workers' White Party Jujuy Wins New People Salta Identity Party Production and Labour Civic Encounter Union for Liberty Authentic Renewal FrontParties in the coalition: Movimiento Independiente Justicia y Dignidad Es PosibleParties in the coalition: Authentic Socialist Party Freemen of the South Movement Socialist Party Generation for a National Encounter Social Pole Movement
Primary elections The candidates of five parties failed in their attempt at passing the 1.5% threshold in the primary elections that would have allowed them to run in the general election.
Popular FrontMovement for SocialismMST-Nueva IzquierdaPeople's PartyNeighbourhood Action Movement Víctor De Gennaro Evangelina Codoni for Presidentfor Vice Presidentfor Presidentfor Vice Presidentfor Presidentfor Vice Presidentfor Presidentfor Vice Presidentfor Presidentfor Vice PresidentParties in the coalition: Popular Unity Revolutionary Communist Party colspan=2 —Parties in the coalition: Workers' Socialist Movement Nueva Izquierda colspan=2 — colspan=2 —
Campaign and controversies
With Kirchner unable to run, three candidates led the opinion polls; Daniel Scioli, Sergio Massa and Mauricio Macri. Several controversies took place during the time of the elections, or related to the elections themselves.
The primary elections and some local elections had scandals of Electoral fraud. There was a frequent theft of ballot papers from the polling places. State-owned Correo Argentino collects the results of each school and sends them to a centralized location for their global count; there have been reports of inconsistencies between the results signed in the schools and those informed by Correo Argentino. Tucumán even had a case of people burning ballot boxes, which led to several demonstrations at Plaza Independencia. There was policial repression on those demonstrations, leading to further scandals.
Journalist Jorge Lanata aired an interview with a prisoner sentenced for the 2008 Triple crime, who claimed that Aníbal Fernández was the mastermind of that crime. This increased the tensions between Fernández and Domínguez, as Fernández considered that Domínguez helped Lanata somehow. Scioli stayed away from both precandidates to governor in the last week before the primary elections, which were won by Fernández.
Ariel Velázquez, a sympathizer of the Radical Civic Union, was shot in his house in Jujuy, after taking part in the political campaign. He died two weeks later, and the Tupac Amaru organization (led by Kirchnerite Milagro Sala) was blamed for it. President Cristina Kirchner claimed that he was not a Radical, which was refuted by his family.
Several cities in the Buenos Aires Province suffered big floods during the primary elections, and the following week. The flood affected 10,000 people. Daniel Scioli had left to Italy at that moment, and made a rushed return. Mauricio Macri considered it a result of poor urban planning under Scioli's provincial government, and compared it with the lack of flooding in Buenos Aires during the same storm, which had undergone flood prevention works under his leadership. Scioli accused users of social networks to plot to damage his public image, and claimed that he has all of them identified.
Vote buying is also a common tool utilized in Argentine elections. As for this election, the director for the Center for Research and Social Action, Rodrigo Zarazaga stated, “Vote buying strategies will probably sway 5 to 12 percent of Argentine voters on Sunday.” An example of vote buying during this election took place in Buenos Aires. Voters in this area were given the option to vote for particular candidates during the municipal elections in Tucumán. The Argentine citizens that actually promised had received “sacks stuffed with bottles of cooking oil, pasta and flour.”
Results Primary elections