MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Macri ahead in Buenos Aires, but fails to avoid runoff

Preliminary voting results indicate that businessman and president of the famous Boca Juniors soccer club, Mauricio Macri, gained a 37 percent plurality in the Buenos Aires municipal elections Sunday, but he will still have to compete in a Sept. 14 runoff election.

With 99 percent of the votes counted in the capital, indications are that Macri was out in front with 37 percent of the ballots, compared to 33.6 percent for current Buenos Aires city government chief Anibal Ibarra. It appeared to be a foregone conclusion that the two candidates would be the pair to face off in the expected runoff.

Leftist candidate Luis Zamora was in third place with 12.3 percent of the votes countes, while former Labor Minister Patricia Bullrich had received 9.8 percent and Radical candidate Cristian Caram was trailing the pack with 2 percent.

The Buenos Aires municipal leadership post is considered a springboard for the presidency, together with the governorship of Buenos Aires province, the most populous and industrialized province in the country.

Before any preliminary results had been tabulated or announced, Ibarra had said he felt he was in an "excellent position to head for a second round" vote. Ibarra, whose candidacy was supported by President Nestor Kirchner, said that he would be conducting "direct dialogue" with other candidates to make "alliances" that might give him the majority for the runoff.

Macri challenged Ibarra to debate him on the best projects to carry out for the benefit of Buenos Aires and its residents. He also asked Ibarra to "stop campaigning with the apparatus and the money of the city he governs." Political commentators were of the opinion the Zamora fared the best - in a manner of speaking - in the election, apparently garnering a far greater percentage of the vote than had earlier been expected. However, he urged his followers not to vote for either Macri or Ibarra in the runoff.

In the province of Catamarca, where an election for governor was held on Sunday, with 20 percent of the vote counted, the indications were that current Gov. Eduardo Brizuela had garnered 49.4 percent of the ballots, 3.3 percent ahead of legislator Liliana Barrionuevo. The vote was carried out in Catamarca without any incidents or snafus of any kind, a change from the election held March 2, when riots started by followers of unionist Luis Barrionuevo caused authorities to annul the results and call the re-vote held Sunday.

According to polls released Friday, Macri was ahead in the pre-vote opinion surveys by less than 1 percentage point, a margin of victory which would not be enough to avoid a runoff on Sept. 14. The ultimate winner will serve a four-year term.

After voting on Sunday, Ibarra said the situation resembled "a soccer match. Although the end of the first half is important, the end of the second half is more important." Ibarra appeared confident since the same polls indicate that he would win a runoff by at least 4 percent. He said he would use the time between Sunday's balloting and the runoff to strengthen and fine-tune his campaign. "We will reach out to all the voters who were with us the first time around and with those who were not," he stated.

After Macri cast his vote, he only asked the city residents to do the same, "happily, with hope and tranquility." Running in third place, according to the polls, is the left-leaning Luis Zamora, who criticized the campaign by the top two contenders and forecast that this will be "the first time since 1983 that the left will influence the result of an election." Prior to Sunday's vote, Zamora had 10 percent support, so the backing he can offer in a runoff would be critical, should he choose to throw his support to either of the two runoff contenders.

Besides choosing the chief of government and his assistant, almost 2.6 million residents of Buenos Aires decided on 60 local legislative seats and 12 representatives to the nation's lower house of Congress.

Thirty-one parties vied for the top position in Buenos Aires city government, 33 were aiming for Congress and 38 were vying for seats in the local legislature.

Monday 01.00am