MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Sunday's presidential candidates' debate decisive for Argentina's runoff on November 22

“There are still 6% of voters which remain undecided, and much will depend on the result of Sunday's presidential debate”, said Alejandro Catterberg

The director of one of the most reliable pollster organization in Argentina anticipated that the 22 November presidential runoff is still an open race despite the fact the incumbent candidate Daniel Scioli is running several points behind his rival and opposition candidate Mauricio Macri.

 “There are still 6% of voters which remain undecided, and much will depend on the result of Sunday's presidential debate, that is how people feel about who did best or who came out more transparent and reliable”, said Alejandro Catterberg, head of Poliarquía.

“In Argentina we don't have presidential debates' experience but they do have an influence”, said Catterberg who recalled a recent situation in Brazil, when Dilma Rousseff, last year, managed to climb back and beat the opposition candidate Aecio Neves by just sufficient in one of the tightest races in Brazilian history.

“In the debate organized by O'Globo, 48 hours before election day, something unprecedented, Rousseff had a better performance that Aecio and several Brazilian analysts argue that was decisive for Dilma's victory” added Catterberg. This helped the re-election of the Brazilian president in October last year.

The pollster pointed out that the first presidential television debate was in the sixties between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon, which finally took the Catholic Irish descendent to the White house.

“Analysts began to understand then that electoral campaigns have much more to do with the empathy candidates generate in public opinion, than in the contents of their proposals. The debate helps people catch something different to what can be achieved in a television interview: gestures, reactions, the confidence they are able to transmit, or not”, said the pollster who underlined “we have to wait and see what happens next Sunday, and how people react to that”.

As to the latest poll Poliarquía released on Wednesday and which was published in La Nacion, Catterberg said “it is showing us that Macri is 8.5 points ahead of Scioli”, and this can be explained by the way Sergio Massa voters are planning to act on Election day.

“There is a clear majority of Massa voters supporting Macri, and this we did not perceive so evidently only a few days ago”. Sergio Massa, a former cabinet chief of the Kirchners, who left government on policy differences, obtained 22% of ballots with his Renewal Front during the first round on 25 October, behind Scioli and Macri.

As to the three other presidential hopefuls, all of them below 5% of votes cast, they are divided. Margarita Stolbizer followers are mostly for Macri, while Del Caño and Rodríguez Saá voters prefer Scioli.

But Catterberg underlines last but not least, “5% of interviews said they would vote blank and 6% remain undecided. Let's wait for Sunday's debate”.

Anyhow the results of Poliarquía indicate that Macri (34.15%) who came almost three points behind Scioli in the first round has since climbed fifteen points (14.7) while Scioli has only added 2 percentage points to the 37% from October.

The poll also shows that both Macri and Scioli have managed to retain their first round supporters (97% and 95%, respectively), while in Massa's Renewal Front, 59% intend to vote Macri and 22% Scioli. This means that 8 out of 100 voters are planning to annul or vote blank and 11% remain undecided.