The conservative opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change), led by Mauricio Macri, begins to define its pre-candidates for Argentina’s elections in 2023.
Without knowing if Macri will run for the presidency, six pre-candidates have confirmed their aspirations to unseat the leftist Frente de Todos (Front for All).
The Argentine opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio is preparing for the general elections of October 22 with the definition of the pre-candidatures that will compete in the Primary, Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory Elections (PASO), to be held on August 13.
For the moment, the Republican Proposal (PRO) party -founded by former President Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) and the majority within the coalition- has been more active in defining pre-candidatures.
In any case, the other relevant partner of the bloc, the Radical Civic Union (UCR), is also outlining some leaders towards the Casa Rosada, the seat of the Argentine executive located in Buenos Aires.
With the aim of “putting an end to hatred and transforming the country”, the head of the Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires (CABA), Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, confirmed his presidential pre-candidacy on February 23.
Almost simultaneously, congresswoman María Eugenia Vidal did the same.
Likewise, the president of PRO and security minister of the Macri Administration, Patricia Bullrich, ratified her presidential candidacy, an intention she had been announcing since the end of 2022.
However, the Argentine political sphere does not know if former President Mauricio Macri will run for a new mandate in October.
Although the political leader has not made any announcement, he has flirted with this possibility.
From the Radical Civic Union, the doctor and current congressman Facundo Manes, the former congresswoman Elisa Carrió and the governor of the province of Jujuy (north), Gerardo Morales, are aspiring for the presidency.
WHO IS WHO IN JUNTOS POR EL CAMBIO
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta
The Argentine politician and economist has served as head of the CABA government since 2015, a post to which he was re-elected in 2019.
According to a recent survey by the consulting firm Solmoirago, accessed by Clarín newspaper, the leader would be the pre-candidate with the highest positive image (52.1%) and the one with the highest potential in voting intention (between 11.9% and 45.8%).
Rodríguez Larreta is the founder of the NGO Grupo Sophia, which since 1998 has aimed to train young people who wish to work in the public sphere.
The leader became involved in politics in 2002, and in 2003 he founded with Macri the Compromiso para el Cambio party, which in 2005 changed its name to Propuesta Republicana.
Within the party, he served as PRO’s campaign manager and was chief of staff when Macri was president of the Government of Buenos Aires.
Patricia Bullrich
The current president of PRO is one of the pre-candidates closely following Rodríguez Larreta regarding positive image (51.7%) and voting intention (between 20.4% and 40.1%).
She served as Minister of Security during the Macri Administration.
The two-time congresswoman (between 2007-2015 and 1993-1997) was also Minister of Labor, Employment, and Human Resources Training and Secretary of Criminal Policy and Penitentiary Affairs during the presidency of Fernando de la Rúa (1999-2001).
Bullrich became involved in political activism at an early age. At 17, she joined the Peronist Youth, and during the Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983), she was exiled to Brazil, Mexico, and Spain.
In 2007 she founded the Unión por Todos party, for which she was a candidate for the Buenos Aires City Council, coming in fourth place.
María Eugenia Vidal
The national deputy is the third PRO leader to aspire to become president of Argentina. A political scientist by profession, Vidal served as deputy head of the CABA government during Macri’s second term, in 2011-2015.
Her most important position was obtained in the 2015 elections, when she was elected governor of the province of Buenos Aires, becoming the first woman to be at the head of the most populated province in the country.
Since 2021 Vidal has been a national congresswoman representing CABA.
She was also a Buenos Aires legislator and Minister of Social Development of the city, held positions in ANSES (National Administration of Social Security), in PAMI (Comprehensive Health Care Program), and various ministries of the nation.
Recently, during the inauguration of her campaign center, she was accompanied by former President Mauricio Macri.
“Today, I was at María Eugenia’s campaign offices, where we shared our concerns about the difficult moment we are going through in Argentina. Despite everything, we both feel hopeful optimism about the coming change. It is encouraging to know that we have committed and serious competitors like her,” Macri wrote on his social networks after the visit.
Gerardo Morales
From radicalism, the current governor of the province of Jujuy is one of those confirmed to compete in the internal elections of Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change). The politician is expected to launch his presidential candidacy on March 15 at the Gran Rex theater in Buenos Aires.
Under a slogan that prioritizes work and production, the political leader, who leads in voting intentions within the UCR (between 5.6% and 28.9%), bets on “recovering the great Argentine middle class”.
Critical of Peronism and unwilling to integrate the presidential formula of another candidate, Morales bets to lead the country even though polls are leaning towards PRO figures.
The also president of the National Committee of the Radical Civic Union has been a national senator representing the province of Jujuy and secretary of Social Development during the administration of Fernando de la Rúa between 2000 and 2001.
Previously, he served as deputy of the province of Jujuy between 1989 and 2000.
Facundo Manes
The clinical neurologist, neuroscientist, and current national deputy for the Radical Civic Union was linked to the political sphere since his youth, with militancy in student centers.
With an extensive academic career and hundreds of scientific publications, Manes is a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (Conicet) and the Australian Research Council.
Manes was the creator of the Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO) and served as a rector of the private Buenos Aires university Favaloro between 2014 and 2018.
In 2016 he was an honorary advisor to the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, María Eugenia Vidal.
Elisa Carrió
The congresswoman, known as Lilita Carrió, is another of the pre-candidates of radicalism.
A lawyer by profession, she was also a deputy for the province of Chaco between 1995 and 2003, and since December 2009, she has been a deputy of the Civic Coalition for CABA.
She is a member of the Constitutional and Impeachment Committees.
Carrió was a presidential candidate in 2003, 2007, and 2011.
In her first candidacy, she obtained close to three million votes, and in her second attempt, she came in second place, with 24% of the votes, only surpassed by Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015).
She is the founder and current general coordinator of the Hannah Arendt Institute for Cultural and Political Training.
With information from Sputnik