(Bloomberg) — Argentina’s ruling coalition suffered its biggest political defeat in two years in office after a primary election that saw the opposition winning most districts, putting the government of President Alberto Fernandez under pressure.
The opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio has unexpectedly won the key district of Province of Buenos Aires, which accounts for more than a third of the country’s electorate, by 4.4 percentage points with 97% of the votes counted. On a national level, the opposition leads by twice that margin in the race for the lower house and by almost 16 percentage points in the senate, according to a tally compiled by newspaper La Nacion.
The primary vote to pick candidates ahead of a midterm on Nov. 14 reflects voters’ growing discontent over Fernandez’s pandemic strategy, rising poverty and annual inflation that has surged to 50%. His coalition lost congressional battles in districts typically favorable to the Peronist government, such as La Pampa, Chubut, Chaco, Tierra del Fuego and even Santa Cruz, the home province of Vice President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
In a speech Sunday night, Fernandez acknowledged the defeat and promised to work on reversing the results.
“Evidently, there’s something we didn’t do right to get people to give us their support as we wished they had,” Fernandez said at the government’s campaign headquarters in Buenos Aires. “The campaign has just begun and we still have two months. We need to win it.”