Macri’s win is a major change for Argentina, and region

As budget minister he reportedly named Alfonso Prat-Gay, 50, a US-trained economist who worked from 1994 for J.P. Morgan (Other OTC: MGHL – news) in London and NY and later served as president of Argentina’s Central Bank.

Voters in Argentina on Sunday elected Mauricio Macri as president, a moderate conservative from a business family, to follow 12 years of liberal rule by the Kirchner family. “We can not waste time on revenge or score-settling”.

RIGHT-WING candidate Mauricio Macri has won the run-off in Argentina’s presidential election by a narrow margin, ending 12 years of “Kirchnerismo”.

Unlike the left-leaning Fernandez de Kirchner, Macri is a center-right politician and former businessman who has promised to lift foreign exchange market regulations, devaluate the peso, and reduce taxes on exports. “We have to build an Argentina with zero poverty, we have to confront the drug smuggling”, he said.

CNBC commented, “Macri’s win marks a decisive shift to the centre-right and raises the prospect of improved ties with the United States and European Union, as well as freer-trading, faster-growing countries on the Pacific coast that include Chile and Peru”.

Asked how long the prohibition, which includes cash and credit and debit card payments in pesos, would last, the American Airlines ticket agent said, “We don’t know”.

Another thing to be hopeful about is that in all likelihood, US-Argentine relations are expected to change for the better. That will take a deal with holdout creditors, reviled as “vulture funds” by Fernandez.

As mayor of Buenos Aires City, the country’s capital, Macri’s government implemented a plan to support incubators and start-ups inspired by the Israeli “Start-Up Nation” model.

It breaks the grip of Peronism, the broad populist movement that has dominated Argentine politics for much of the past 70 years.

Macri focused his election campaign on the people’s sense of frustration over the country’s lackluster growth, high inflation and widespread corruption and his challenge will be to change the scenario on Argentina’s economy, a campaign promise that made him popular on Wall Street but drew severe criticism from his opponents.

Conceding defeat on Sunday, Mr Scioli said: “The people have chosen an alternative”.

Juan Jose Aranguren, former president of the Argentine division of the British-Dutch oil giant Shell (LSE: RDSB.L – news), was lined up as energy minister, Argentine newspapers reported, citing sources in Macri’s Let’s Change coalition.

However, the president-elect targeted Venezuela’s leftist leaders, whom he accuses of persecuting the political opposition.