MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ibarra reelected Buenos Aires mayor.

Buenos Aires Mayor Anibal Ibarra won reelection in Sunday's municipal and regional balloting, defeating businessman Mauricio Macri. The victory is also a great achievement for President Kirchner who openly supported Ibarra when he was trailing by 20 points in the opinion polls.

Although both candidates had claimed victory after the polls closed, and Macri press secretary Juan Pablo Schiavi said that exit polls showed that the president of the Boca Juniors soccer club had won by a margin of 2.2 percent, Macri himself later admitted that Ibarra had managed to prevail, although by that time no official results had been released.

Macri, in his concession statement offered to work with Ibarra and committed the national and local legislators who supported him to do the same.

"I want to extend my hand to my adversaries. We got to know one another in struggle, but now we can get to know each other in debate and in collective construction. I am not one to harbor resentment, nor do I feel diminished by facing up (to reality)," he stated. He added that all his legislative supporters are going to "work in conjunction with all the political forces that are committed, like us, to improving the quality of life for Argentines." With 99.87 percent of the vote counted, were that Ibarra had obtained 53.46 percent of the vote to Macri's 46.54 percent.

Political analysts said that the result was a great victory for President Nestor Kirchner, who had supported Ibarra even when he was lagging 20 percentage points behind Macri in the pre-election surveys. Analysts attributed Ibarra's win, to a large degree, to the popular Kirchner's unflagging support

In his victory speech, Ibarra thanked his supporters and, in particular, expressed his gratitude for the congratulations given him by Kirchner himself.

Meanwhile, in Buenos Aires province, current Gov. Felipe Sola proclaimed himself the winner of the gubernatorial election with 45.54 percent of the ballots, even though the votes at only 303 of the 25,605 precincts had been tallied.

His rival Luis Patti, the mayor of Escobar who allegedly committed acts of torture during the military dictatorship, claimed the election was tainted with fraud and called on his supporters to protest.

In Santa Cruz province which Kirchner governed for the past 12 years before becoming president, his favored gubernatorial candidate, Sergio Acevedo won the election in an 73 percent landslide according to preliminary projections.

In Jujuy province, initial results indicated that current Governor Eduardo Fellner won reelection by a wide margin, and in Chaco province, with 45% of the vote counted ruling party candidate Roy Nikisch had 52,45% of the votes while Peronist candidate Jorge Capitanich had garnered 41,71 percent.

This ensures the power base of current governor Angel Rozas as one of the main leaders of the opposition Radical party and possible presidential candidate in 2007.