Argentina’s Massa coy on role in any presidential run-off

Opinion polls have put Scioli at about 40 percent, with Macri at around 30 percent.

The two men bidding to be Argentina’s next president have begun their campaigns for November’s run-off vote.

“Scioli wins”, read the rolling red electronic strap on the television screens in the packed media annex at the Front for Victory movement’s headquarters in Buenos Aires.

Not only did the ruling party fail to dominate the presidential vote, they also lost their congressional majority and – arguably as hurtful as anything else – the polemical government minister Anibal Fernandez, one of President Fernandez’s top allies, failed in his bid to become governor of Argentina’s most important province, Buenos Aires.

A woman irons a tablecloth before a press conference by Buenos Aires’ Governor, and ruling party presidential candidate, Daniel Scioli, the day after elections in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Monday, October 26, 2015.

Scioli had a commanding eight-point lead over second-placed Macri, following primaries that narrowed the field of candidates to six, and was hoping to parlay that into an outright majority win Sunday.

“I’m still as optimistic as ever, because there is no two without three”, said Scioli, citing a traditional maxim.

“There’s no doubt about who will come in first and second”.

Addressing his supporters following what amounted to a victory for his center-right coalition, the Buenos Aires Mayor Macri told his supporters that the unexpected outcome marked a significant shift in Argentine politics.

According to the constitution, to win the presidency a candidate must either win 45% of the vote or have an advantage of 10 percentage points over their closest rival.

In a speech before thousands of party militants, Scioli reached out to swing voters for their support.

Macri called the vote “transformative”, and promised to convince voters who didn’t choose him on Sunday.

Scioli will seek to exploit a perception among many voters that Macri, the son of a construction magnate, would restore the kind of right-wing policies widely blamed for triggering a deep economic crisis in 2001-2002, when millions fell into poverty.

Financial markets enjoyed the shock result of Argentina’s first-round presidential elections on Sunday.

Sergio Massa, a former Kirchner ally, is running in the third place.

“We will correct the abuses and the fraud of inflation”, Macri said, reiterating one of his common themes.

Fernandez will step down adored by the poor and working class for generous welfare handouts and protectionist policies but reviled by others for strangling the economy with currency controls and other interventionist moves after a commodities-fuelled boom ended.

“The result provides a clear message to politicians that the population favors change following 12 years of Kirchner rule, and that the electorate is shifting to the right”, JP Morgan analyst Iker Cabiedes wrote in a research note, referring to the governments of leftist Cristina Kirchner Fernandez and her late husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner. Scioli, backed by outgoing President Cristina Fernandez, will surely fan fears that his center-right rival wants to slash social programs.