In this Nov. 2, 2015 photo, children walk back from school in Buenos Aires, Argentina. AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko
Mauricio Macri, leader of the Republican Proposal (PRO), a new Argentine political force founded in the last decade that is neither radical nor Peronist, became president at the December 2015 runoff election. The triumph of the Let's Change coalition, which grouped the Radical Civic Union (UCR ), the PRO and the Civic Coalition (CC), left no doubt that a new era was about to start in Argentina. PRO’s María Eugenia Vidal became governor of the province of Buenos Aires and this was a prelude for the new times coming: after 28 years in power, Peronism lost this strategic province. Today, the Justicialist Party (PJ) has many representatives, but few resources. The elections of 2015 set in motion a change in the Argentine political system. The PRO, the PJ and the UCR are no longer what they used to be, foreshadowing a new party system dynamics.
The election results brought about significant new developments, among them a dispersion of the vote of both segments of the middle and affluent classes, and the poor. Politics in Argentina is now less conditioned by social structure than in previous decades. The social profile of the country has changed over the last few years. Economic growth and social and consumer stimulus policies swelled the ranks of the so-called emerging middle class. Between 2004 and 2012, the middle class grew at the expense of the lower class, which lost 10 share points in that period, falling from 55.4% to 45.2% of the population. Since 2012, however, this expansive trend of the middle class has been reversed. In 2015, the lower middle class fell from 30.9% to 30.3%. Inflation and recession were responsible for this, affecting all the middle strata, and increasing poverty. The lower class included, in 2015, almost half of the population (47.5%), while the lower middle class (30.2%) and the standard middle class (16.8) accounted for 47%. The upper and upper middle class amounted to 5.5%, according to estimates by various consulting firms and recent studies, for the country lacks any reliable official statistics since 2007. According to Palomino and Dalle, the "lower middle class ", which would account for the bulk of the emerging strata, is composed of micro-entrepreneurs, self-employed own-equipped professionals, technicians, teachers, health workers and clerical workers.
