This Sunday, along with the presidential elections, the people of Buenos Aires will elect their governor for the next four years. The current president Axel Kicillof will seek re-election after having obtained first place in the Primaries, Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory (PASO), against an opposition that will be represented by Néstor Grindetti from Together for Change (JxC), Carolina Píparo from La Libertad Avanza (LLA) and Rubén «Pollo» Sobrero of the Left and Workers Front (FIT-U). The province, one of the four districts that did not split their elections from the national calendar, is the one with the largest number of voters in the country, with more than 13 million qualified citizens.
In the Buenos Aires elections, in addition to the governor and vice president, 35 national deputies and three senators will be elected; a Mercosur parliamentarian; 135 mayors; 46 provincial deputies; 23 Buenos Aires senators; 1,097 councilors; and 401 school counselors. According to data provided by the Electoral Justice, a total of 13,110,768 citizens are registered in the largest electoral district in the country, and will vote at 38,074 tables located in 6,144 schools.
The four lists that will compete this Sunday are those that managed to exceed the floor of 1.5 percent of votes in the PASO. With 36.4 points (more than three million votes), Kicillof came first, followed by Grindetti with 32.9 and Píparo with 23.8.
In the run-up to the election, the provincial president – who has vice Verónica Magario as his running mate – was optimistic about the citizens’ assessment of his Government and hopes that this will also attract the greatest amount of support for Massa is convinced that «state adjustment and reduction projects» such as those proposed by presidential candidates Javier Milei (LLA) and Patricia Bullrich (JxC) «would mean destruction for the province.»
Faced with a divided opposition, the chances of the Unión por la Patria candidate achieving reelection increase since, unlike what happens with the national election, in the province of Buenos Aires there is no runoff, so the slightest difference would give him the victory.
For his part, the mayor of Lanús on leave will try, together with the communal chief of Trenque Lauquen, Miguel Fernández, to concentrate the opposition vote in a context in which they hope to capitalize on the impact of the Martín Insaurralde scandal. In that sense, the growth of the list headed by Píparo with the criminal lawyer Francisco Onetto as a vice candidate, is an obstacle that dilutes the discontent with the ruling party, previously concentrated in JxC.
The libertarian deputy, who garnered 1,985,216 votes in the primaries, took advantage of the good election that Milei made and aspires for the far-right to once again attract votes in the province, which is why part of her campaign was a call not to cut ballot by the people of Buenos Aires.
Meanwhile, the Trotskyist front will seek to expand the base of 294,518 votes that allowed it to pass the PASO and to do so it will take the railway leader along with former deputy Nathalia González Seligra in the formula for governor.