Mauricio Macri wins Argentinian election to end 12 years of Peronist rule

Conservative coalition leader Mauricio Macri defeated Peronist candidate Daniel Scioli, ending 12 years of Peronist rule.

Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri had been looking increasingly confident during the last month of his campaign (GETTY)

At 9.58 Argentinian time, Mauricio Macri spoke his first words as newly elected President of Argentina. “You made the impossible possible,” Mr. Macri said from the stage, and the huge crowd enthusiastically cheered him on, forcing a moved Macri to pause his speech until the roar had stopped. The party could officially begin.

In the brisk summer night under the blossoming Jacaranda trees, Macri supporters celebrated in the streets of Buenos Aires, cheering and dancing, as though Maradona had scored a decisive winner.

“We want change, and Macri can deliver it,” 35 year-old Martin Mezzetero told The Independent, bursting with joy.

You could smell it in the air at the conservative candidate Mauricio Macri´s election bunker on Sunday evening in Buenos Aires. Victory was near. As voting stations closed at six pm, the crowd at the bunker sporadically went into frenzy; cheering ´Mauricio Presidente´ as a widescreen displayed the time - 6 pm, voting had ended.

As the first polls showed a 5 point win for Macri, celebrations started early, and went on until the final result came in at 9.52 pm, with over 66 per cent of the vote counted, the electoral office announced that Macri had won, having a 7 point lead at that point. Losing candidate Daniel Scioli accepted defeat in a speech given to bleak supporters at Hotel NH in downtown Buenos Aires.

56 year-old Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, had been looking increasingly confident during the last month of his campaign, and a bit past midnight on Sunday night Argentinian time, it was a fact, Mauricio Macri will be the new President of Argentina.

Though Scioli supporters are destined to disagree, Macri supporters at the event believed the win belonged to the whole country. “I´m so happy. Things will change for the better in Argentina now. Justice and development for all,” 38 year-old Sofia Castro said to The Independent.

Macri succeeded in convincing Argentinians that it is time for a change in the country, while promising to still hold the hand under the people truly reliant on welfare programmes.

Offering liberal conservative politics, Macri succeeded in luring voters away from the Peronists when they were at their weakest, by carefully avoiding connotations to the economical crisis in 2002, despite strong efforts from the Scioli campaign to link Macri to just that. “Macri managed to gather all non-Peronist votes while Peronism was divided,” says Director of political think tank Cipol Marcos Novaro, to The Independent.

The appointed heir to the power in the Peronist Front for Victory coalition Daniel Scioli let down the long-reigning queen, Christina Kirchner.

After 12 years with the Kirchners, first Nestor Kirchner, and for the past eight his widow Christina Kirchner, enough was enough for the Argentinian people.

Battling a 25 per cent inflation rate, a massive debt owed to ´vulture funds´, and public spending far outweighing the income, the people lost faith in the Peronist project. In a historic election, the first run-off since democracy was re-installed thirty years ago, Macri came out on top, after the Scioli campaign seemed unprepared to go into a run-off campaign, in hindsight, a costly lack of preparation.

The defeat was instigated in the first round of elections on Oct. 25th when Scioli, to manys surprise, failed to secure a Peronist win, causing a run-off election between the two main candidates. Since then, it has been a free fall for the Peronists, and for Scioli in particular. Looking tired and powerless, and with very little support from the soon to be former President Christina Kirchner, Scioli has been looking like a dead man walking. The last rounds were fired during last Sunday´s debate, where Scioli was expected to come out guns blazing, but instead left a vague and fatigued impression, as if he was merely walking towards the light at the end of the tunnel.

The winner has, in contrast to Scioli, been looking increasingly invigorated and confident. The former football boss and successful businessman, and now soon to be President, Mauricio Macri, has proposed a drastic change from Peronist politics, and the Argentinian people have applauded this alternative. Macri has built his platform on massive cuts in subsidies, and opening up Latin America´s third-biggest economy to foreign trade.

Macri-voter, 25 year-old Alex Peis, is excited about the shift in power.

“Macri represents change towards a less hostile approach to the rest of the world and working towards rebuilding the economy,” he says to The Independent.

Mr. Macri´s politics include settling the country´s billion-dollar debt to what President Christina Kirchner has labelled ´vulture funds´, which will make Argentina eligible to enter the international economic society again.

The new President will also have a friendlier attitude towards his international colleagues. While anti-british President Kirchner deemed it a good idea to serve David Cameron with a written invitation to a meeting concerning the Malvinas during a UN convention, Macri will lead a less combative foreign policy.

Mr. Macri started courting the international community tonight, as he throughout his speech to his enthusiastic supporters, talked about how much Argentina has to offer the world.

But first, Mr. Macri faces the tough battle of unifying a torn country after months, maybe even years, of political warfare. A battle that starts tonight, as the country seems cracked down the middle.