ARGENTINA: Polls show Argentine incumbent Cristina Fernandez pulling away as she looks poised for landslide re-election on Sunday

Record ID: 446648

  • Title: ARGENTINA: Polls show Argentine incumbent Cristina Fernandez pulling away as she looks poised for landslide re-election on Sunday
  • Date: 21st October 2011
  • Summary: BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA (FILE) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF CONGRESS
  • Embargoed: 5th November 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Argentina, Argentina
  • Country: Argentina
  • Topics: Economic News,Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVA2FP8FHYOWLR8K57FBT93WDIHJ
  • Story Text: Argentine President Cristina Fernandez looks set to win easy re-election on Sunday with nearly 55 percent of the vote and a massive lead over her nearest rival, an opinion poll showed on Thursday (October 20).
    The center-leftist's support now stands at 54.6 percent, according to the latest survey by local pollsters Management & Fit, up from 53.2 percent in a poll earlier this month.
    That puts her more than 40 points ahead of her nearest rival, Socialist provincial governor Hermes Binner, who tried to gain traction by pointing to 'warning signs' in the country's booming economy.
    The poll showed Binner, with support of 11.6 percent, down slightly from 12.4 percent previously, something that surprised Mariel Fornoni, an analyst for Management & Fit.
    "One may have thought Binner was going to make up more ground than he did, because we have him projected at 14, 15 percent, no more than that for now. And the truth is there was drastic fall in the candidates (Ricardo) Alfonsin and (Eduardo) Duhalde, also more than we expected. We were expecting them to fall three, four, or five points. It's close, but they all fell more than that," she said.
    Social democratic legislator Ricardo Alfonsin, son of the late former president, closed his campaign with a rally at a school on Thursday morning.
    Alfonsin has been losing ground over the last two months and recent campaign spots directly attacking Fernandez could not pick him up.
    Duhalde, who governed briefly as Argentina emerged from the acute economic crisis in 2001-2002, couldn't transfer his clout as in the working class suburbs of Buenos Aires to a national campaign.
    Running neck-and-neck in third place with Alfonsin is San Luis provincial governor Alberto Rodriguez Saa at 5.2 percent, according to the poll.
    Artermio Lopez, an analyst for political consultant Equis, said the president will be looking at a positive situation in lawmaking, but won't have carte blanche.
    "The concept of the ally that acts in the same way I think must be abandoned because it would be imprudent and it doesn't respect the immediate historical pattern, which is the behaviour of the allies during the process from 2009 to 2011. Because of this, they don't have their own quorum. They have the majority, but a majority that needs allies pass the important laws. So the parliamentary situation is of certain dominance, but it's far from hegemony," he said.
    If Sunday's result confirms the poll's findings, it would mark the biggest election win since democracy returned to the country in 1983 when Raul Alfonsin won 51.8 percent of the vote.
    It would also be a significant improvement on the 45.3 percent that Fernandez won in 2007 when she succeeded her late husband, former President Nestor Kirchner.
    Fernandez won just over 50 percent of votes in an August primary, which was seen as a dress rehearsal for the Oct. 23 election because all parties had already anointed their candidates and voters could choose among them.
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