Elections for a successor to
President Néstor Kirchner were held in October. Kirchner, although not term-limited, had declined to run for a second term. Kirchner's wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, ran instead to succeed him. To enhance his wife's electoral prospects, Kirchner pressured the national statistics agency to manipulate economic numbers to make the economy appear stronger than it was. In addition to the President, each district elected a number of members of the Lower House (the Chamber of Deputies) roughly proportional to their population, and eight districts elected members to the
Argentine Senate, where each district is entitled to three senators (two for the majority, one for the largest minority party). In most provinces, the national elections were conducted in parallel with local ones, whereby a number of
municipalities elect legislative officials (
concejales) and in some cases also a mayor (or the equivalent executive post). Each provincial election follows local regulations and some, such as Tucumán, hold municipal elections on other dates in the year. According to the rules for
elections in Argentina, to win the presidential election without needing a "
ballotage" round, a candidate needs either more than 45% of the valid votes, or more than 40% of the valid votes with a margin of 10 points from the runner-up. Following months of speculation, and despite high approval ratings, President Kirchner confirmed his decision to forfeit the 2007 race, and the ruling
Front for Victory (FpV), a
center-left Peronist Party, nominated the First Lady and Senator
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, on July 19. Acknowledging the support of a growing number of
UCR figures ("
K Radicals") to the
populist policies advanced by
Kirchnerism, the FpV nominated
Mendoza Province Governor
Julio Cobos as her running mate. The ideologically diverse field also included former Economy Minister
Roberto Lavagna (who broke with Kirchner in late 2005, obtained the endorsement of the
UCR, and ran slightly to the right of the FpV),
Elisa Carrió (a center-left Congresswoman close to the Catholic Church), and numerous conservatives and socialists; in all, fourteen candidates registered for the election. The UCR, for the first time since it first ran in a presidential campaign in 1892, joined a coalition (Lavagna's UNA) rather than nominate its own candidate. The President, who had maintained high approval ratings throughout his term on the heels of a strong recovery in the
Argentine economy, was beset by controversies during 2007, including Commerce Secretary
Guillermo Moreno's firing of Graciela Bevacqua (the
INDEC statistician overseeing inflation data), allegations of Planning Minister
Julio de Vido's involvement in a
Skanska bribery case, and the "
suitcase scandal." These controversies, however, did not ultimately overshadow positive consumer sentiment and a generally high presidential job approval. The
Front for Victory's candidate, Senator and First Lady
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, maintained a comfortable lead in polling during the campaign. Her opponents focused on forcing her into a ballotage. However, with 13 challengers splitting the vote, Fernández won a decisive first-round victory with 45.3% of the valid votes, more than 22 points ahead of runner-up Carrió. She won in every province or district except
San Luis (won by
Alberto Rodríguez Saá),
Córdoba (won by Lavagna), and the
City of Buenos Aires (won by Carrió). Carrió, who obtained 23%, made history as the first runner-up to another woman in a national election in the Americas. == Presidential candidates ==