This time voters choose a pro-business president
November 24, 2015 12:00 AM
Share with others:
Voters in Argentina on Sunday elected Mauricio Macri as president, a moderate conservative from a business family, to follow 12 years of liberal rule by the Kirchner family.
Mr. Macri will succeed Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who has been president since 2007, and her late husband, Nestor Kirchner, who came to power in 2003 and died in 2010.
Ms. Fernandez, who was barred from running for another term, had supported Daniel Scioli, governor of Buenos Aires province, in the election. Their party is the Peronists, the heritage of legendary President Juan Domingo Peron.
Although Mr. Macri’s thin margin of victory, about three percentage points, means that he will have constraints on what he can do, his election is still significant since it will likely mean change for Argentina’s economic and foreign policies. The so-called “Kirchner era” came on the heels of Argentina’s 2001 economic collapse and default on $82 billion in debt. The Kirchner government’s response was to spend, run up deficits and resist the country’s creditors. Last year, it defaulted for an eighth time.
Argentina certainly needs a change in economic prospects, given its flat economic growth and 30 percent inflation rate, which deters investment.
The new government should have better relations with the United States. Under the Kirchners, the country often stood with Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador in a sometimes harsh, anti-U.S. posture. The change in Argentina, as well as the healing underway between the United States and Cuba, should improve U.S. relations with Latin America in general.
Despite its struggles, Argentina remains a political and economic powerhouse in the Western Hemisphere. Americans should welcome the change of direction that Mr. Macri’s election brings and Washington should capitalize on the presence of more sympathetic leadership in Buenos Aires.