MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Final voting results from August 14 Primary confirm CFK landslide

Interior minister Randazzo engaged in a heated discussion with several journalists regarding ‘fraud’ allegations

Argentine Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo announced Tuesday the final voting results of the primary elections that took place last August 14th, with President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner leading the presidential race by a 50.24% of the votes.

Fernández de Kirchner ended up garnering a 0.17 percent more than originally thought, since the preliminary recount suggested she had obtained a 50.07%.

UCR candidate Ricardo Alfonsín came in second place with a 12.20% (after having initially obtained a 12.17%) and Unión Popular’s Eduardo Duhalde came in third place with a 12.12% of the votes.

Hermes Binner, from the Frente Amplio Progresista party, ended up in fourth place with a 10.18%of the votes, suffering a small decrease from the original preliminary results in which he had obtained a 10.26%.

Minister Randazzo said the difference between the preliminary and the final results “is barely of a 0.03 percent,” as he rejected all fraud accusations coming from the opposition.

According to the Electoral Committee a 78.67% of the registered voters cast their ballots that day.

Commenting of results UDESO presidential candidate Alfonsín assured he was “not surprised” after learning that he had come in second after the August 14th primary elections, even though it was rival candidate Eduardo Duhalde who had originally claimed that place.

“We weren’t surprised to come in second place. Our polling station officials had already assured that and the final amount of votes we obtained could be even higher had the contested ballot boxes in the Greater Buenos Aires area been opened,” he indicated moments after Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo announced the final results of the elections.

Regarding Interior Minister Randazzo’s conference on Tuesday in which he engaged in a heated discussion with several journalists, the UDESO presidential candidate said that “his opinions towards the election’s media coverage and the opposition’s fraud accusations were not ideal.”

“The total amount of votes after the final recount is inferior to the real amount, since the contested ballot boxes couldn’t be opened. Meaning their calculations were based on the several telegrams sent from every polling station in the Buenos Aires province, which we questioned,” he stated.

The Radical leader assures that the “anomalies” were detected in over 5 percent of the Buenos Aires polling stations, for which he concluded that “if the recount is done by the electoral justice and not the Executive branch, as the minister said, then the Government has no right to judge whether there was foul play or not.”

While speaking on a press conference from the Government House, Minister Randazzo shot down the opposition’s accusations of fraud during the primary elections and assured that the difference between the elections’ preliminary and final results “barely represents a 0.03 percent” difference.

“These numbers reflect what we had previously announced, contrary to what several media monopolies and opposition leaders tried to say by attacking not a government, but the institutional quality they like to talk about so much about even though they hardly ever contribute to it,” he said.

During the press conference, the minister engaged in a heated discussion with several members of the Government House press corps, after he accused them of “not being truthful, omitting and twisting information” regarding the primary elections’ results.