Conservative Mauricio Macri confirmed victor in Argentina’s presidential elections

BUENOS AIRES President-elect Mauricio Macri promised on Monday to correct the errors of Argentina’s outgoing leftist government but urged patience while he defines his strategy to liberalize the ailing economy.

Before forming his center-right party Compromiso para el Cambio (Commitment to Change) in 2003, he also served as one of the most successful presidents of the Boca Juniors football club – a role he played from 1996 to 2008.

Argentina’s election body said Mr Macri had 52.1 per cent of votes and Mr Scioli had 47.9 per cent with returns in from 91.5 per cent of polling stations.

‘Today there is an optimism in Buenos Aires which hasn’t been seen for over a decade, change has finally come to Argentina and not a moment too soon, ‘ he said.

Loud cheers were reported coming from Macri’s campaign headquarters as the news of his impending win was released.

Leaders in Scioli’s camp did not initially react publicly at the city center hotel where his supporters were gathered. “Macri’s win signals a decisive break with the Kirchner-Fernandez legacy of creditor confrontation and economic mismanagement”, Kleiman said. But neither candidate won outright, forcing Argentina’s first-ever runoff.

Outgoing President Cristina Fernandez, who was preceded in office by her late husband Nestor Kirchner, is as loved by the poor for her generous welfare programs as she is reviled by others for her confrontational style and the stifling controls she put on the economy.

Policy changes including removing substantial taxes and economic data that was revamping viewed as controlled by Fernandez’s government is going to be fast successes to underscore his intention to bring change.

He becomes only the third non-Peronist leader since the end of military rule in 1983. “Argentines are exhausted of this government”.

“You made the impossible possible”, Macri of the Let’s Change coalition said to supporters Sunday night.

“We hope they have the dignity and generosity to allow the new government to choose its path by letting us choose people in which I and all my team hold trust”, Macri told reporters in what he promises will be the first in a series of press conferences.

“This is a politically polarized country and it was a hotly contested race”.

Among South American nations, Venezuela stood out in its reaction to Macri’s victory.

Macri proposed to immediately lift restrictions on imports and on USA dollars.

Venezuela’s opposition takes on the ruling Socialist Party in a December 6 parliamentary election where they could win the National Assembly for the first time in more than 15 years. He is also expected to have a warmer relationship with Britain, after Kirchner had repeatedly attacked the United Kingdom in the territorial dispute over the Falkland Islands – referred to in Spanish as Las Malvinas.

After a 2001 financial crisis in which Argentina was bailed out by the worldwide Monetary Fund, the Kirchners presided over a spectacular turnaround, but the economy now seems to be flagging again.