Argentine election turns page on Kirchner era

Argentina chooses its next president Sunday, turning the page on 12 years under Cristina Kirchner and her late husband, Nestor, in a race largely fought over their divisive legacy.

In a country of great passions, from tango to football to its feasts of beef, the Kirchners' shepherding of Argentina's once spectacular but now sputtering turnaround from a 2001 economic crisis stirs strong feelings for both their working-class electoral base and their typically wealthier foes.

The front-runner is the candidate of continuity, Daniel Scioli, who served as Nestor's vice president and is Cristina's choice to carry forward the movement known as "kirchnerism."

His top rival is Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri, the candidate of Argentines fed up with what is perceived as the Kirchners' heavy-handed economic policy, combative style, nationalist rhetoric and populism.

Because of the country's peculiar electoral laws, there may also be a spoiler in the race: Sergio Massa, a former Kirchner ally who fell out with the president and launched a rival party, the Renewal Front, two years ago.

To win outright in the first round, a candidate must claim more than 45 percent of the vote, or at least 40 percent with a margin of 10 points over the runner-up.

Opinion polls put Scioli just shy of 40 percent, with Macri at around 30 percent and Massa at around 20 percent. This means the country could be headed for its first-ever run-off election, on November 22.

Whoever wins will, on December 10, inherit a country troubled by inflation, an overvalued currency and an economy facing what the International Monetary Fund predicts will be a 0.7 percent contraction next year.

That's nowhere near as bad as the 10.9 percent it shrank in 2002, in the aftermath of a financial meltdown that sparked deadly rioting in the streets.

But it is a far cry from the more than eight percent average growth it registered under Nestor Kirchner, who handed power to his wife in 2007 but died of a heart attack in 2010.

Argentina, Latin America's largest economy after Brazil and Mexico, is also still waging a messy legal battle against two American hedge funds that refuse to sign up for its plans to restructure the $100 billion in debt it defaulted on in 2001.
The firms, which Kirchner condemns as "vulture funds," successfully sued for full payment in US federal court.

Kirchner's refusal to pay them pushed Argentina into a new default last year.

Her tenure has also been marked by acrimonious battles with big media, the courts and old Falklands War enemy Britain.

- Too close to call -

After eight years under a female president whose one-of-a-kind style ranged from fiery to maternal, the South American country is now bound to be led by a man from an affluent family with Italian roots -- a description that applies to all three top contenders.
Two of them, Scioli and Macri, are also married to former models.

Scioli, the 58-year-old governor of Buenos Aires province, is an eight-time world power-boating champion known for his love of speed.

He entered politics after losing his right arm in a racing accident in 1989 -- an injury he has downplayed on the campaign trail by showing off his ability to knot his tie one-handed.

Macri, the 56-year-old candidate of the Let's Change coalition, rose to fame as the president of Argentina's most popular football club, Boca Juniors, which won a string of titles under his reign.

"We have to leave behind the Argentina where 'you think like me or you're the enemy.' Let's put our energy into building," he said as he wrapped up his campaign Thursday.

Besides Massa, three long-shot candidates round out the ballot, including former president Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, who led Argentina for seven days at the height of its economic crisis.

Argentina's 32 million voters will also elect their representatives in Congress and the regional free- trade bloc Mercosur. Eleven of the country's 23 provinces will also elect governors and other officials.

Voting is compulsory, begins at 8:00 am (1100 GMT) and closes at 6:00 pm (2100 GMT), with the first results expected around three hours later. But pollsters have warned the numbers are so close that a long night of counting could follow.