Mauricio Macri´s sworn in. Flickr/Magalí Iglesias. Some rights reserved.
Many explanations have been offered on the surprising defeat of the ruling Frente Para la Victoria (FpV, a left-of-center coalition founded by Néstor and Cristina Kirchner, with roots in the political movement founded by Juan Perón) in the second-round of the Argentine 2015 Presidential elections to the Cambiemos coalition (a right-wing coalition headed by the former major of the City of Buenos Aires Mauricio Macri, heir of the Macri fortune). I consider all those explanations insufficient and argue that the reason why FpV lost the elections is because it failed to understand that the Argentine society was tired of the harsh and confrontational tone that characterized FpV’s Governments, and demanded a change in the tone and style of its Executive.
Cambiemos unexpected electoral promise of maintaining the key social and economic policies of the last decade demonstrates that the people were generally satisfied with the transformations introduced by Néstor and Cristina Kirchner’s administrations. Consequently, in spite having won the election, Cambiemos has not won a mandate for backtracking the fundamental economic and social reforms of the Kirchners’ years, much criticized and opposed by Macri in the last ten years.
