
Argentina's currency collapsed 30.3% to a record 65 Pesos to the US dollar while government bonds sold off steeply on Monday after the country’s market-friendly, President Mauricio Macri, performed worse than expected in Sunday primary elections.

Argentines are facing what is probably the tightest presidential race since the return of the country’s democracy in 1983 with conservative President Mauricio Macri facing an opposition ticket including ex-President Cristina Fernández, and the primary elections Sunday are expected to provide a hint of who might win October’s vote.

Argentina’s election primary on Sunday will determine President Mauricio Macri’s chances of winning a second term in October, with the country’s embattled peso currency expected to take a fresh beating next week if the business-friendly does not accomplish as expected.

Argentina's opposition presidential candidate Alberto Fernández took distance from her mentor and vice president companion, Cristina Fernandez, saying that the food situation in Venezuela is under no means comparable to Argentina.

President Mauricio Macri’s chances of winning Argentina’s election this year are improving as public sentiment climbs and the economy begins to find its footing after a currency crisis, according to Alejandro Catterberg, director of Poliarquia, one of the nation’s top pollsters.

Alberto Fernandez, the main challenger to incumbent President Mauricio Macri in October elections, said on Thursday that if elected he would seek to “rework” Argentina’s huge financing deal with the International Monetary Fund, calling it “harmful.”

“What good is it to throw a man ten feet of rope if he is drowning in 20 feet of water?” asked Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the IMF, to The Economist 15 years ago. His question still bothers the institution he used to advise.

Months of intense political negotiations and last minute nerve breaking deals came to an end in Argentina on Sunday's zero hour deadline, when the different political groupings had to present to electoral authorities their list of presidential hopefuls, as well as future lawmakers.

A court on Wednesday sentenced former Argentine secretary of Public Works minister Jose Lopez to six years in prison after he was caught by police trying to hide bags stuffed with US$9 million in cash at a Buenos Aires convent.

President Mauricio Macri stunned Argentines and markets on Tuesday by naming the head of the congressional opposition as his vice-presidential candidate in October's general election. Miguel Angel Pichetto, a 68-year-old lawyer and Senator from the province of Rio Negro has been a loyal and pragmatic member of the Peronist movement since he started in politics in the early eighties.