Ruling party candidate Daniel Scioli could win Argentina's presidential election in the first round, after an opinion poll published on Friday showed he had widened his lead over his closest rival. Scioli, the anointed candidate of President Cristina Fernandez, would win 41.3% of voters' support, including his share of projected undecided votes, the survey by Ricardo Rouvier & Associates showed. Second-placed mayor of Buenos Aires City, Mauricio Macri would secure 30.5%.
The unofficial or 'blue' US dollar exchange rate in Argentina hit an all-time high of 16.08 Pesos at the end of trading on Friday, due in part to policy uncertainty ahead of the October 25 presidential election, according to local market sources.
The annulment by a Tucuman court of a gubernatorial election in a stronghold of Argentina's ruling party, outraged officials of President Cristina Fernandez's administration and gave a boost to opponents ahead of the Oct. 25 presidential contest.
Poverty and malnutrition are back on the Argentine presidential campaign debate as a consequence of the death of a 14-year old boy from an indigenous community which shocked Argentine public opinion.
Argentine opposition presidential candidates despite the encouraging mathematics which emerged from early August primaries, and despite having sat at the same table to call for electoral reform, insisted that any ongoing cooperation between the two rival candidates on electoral matters should not be confused with an electoral alliance.
Former French president Nicholas Sarkozy, visiting Buenos Aires, has offered to bring sides together regarding the Falklands/Malvinas Islands dispute between Argentina, the United Kingdom and the Islanders, according to the incumbent presidential candidate Daniel Scioli.
The scenario of a runoff in Argentina's coming presidential election next October 'remains' strong, according to public opinion analyst Jorge Giacobbe. The two candidates who are expected to dispute a second round in November are the incumbent Daniel Scioli and conservative Mauricio Macri.
The Argentine football star Carlos Tevez, who played in England, Italy and is now back in Argentina caused a major uproar when during a television interview he said that in the northern province of Formosa he had come across poor people who were literally 'dead hungry'.
Over 20.000 people are estimated to have been evacuated or suffering flooding because of continued rains in Buenos Aires province where a wind alert for the River Plate area and coastal zones is hampering draining possibilities, a situation which started last week and is expected to last until Sunday.
The Cristina Fernandez administration candidate Daniel Scioli, as anticipated, was the presidential hopeful with most votes in Argentina Sunday's open, simultaneous and mandatory primaries, (PASO), in which the different parties chose those who will lead them into the 25 October election to elect the head of the Executive, half the Lower House and a third of the Senate.