The first round of the presidential elections in Argentina materialized with a great surprise: the victory of the Peronist candidate and current Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, who with 36.68% of the votes managed to defeat the great favorite, Javier Milei, with a lead of 6.7 points. Both candidates will face each other in a tight second round, on November 19.

However, the votes of Argentinians residing in Spain have had another meaning. According to data provided by party prosecutors, to which 20minutos has had access, the big winner in Spain has been Patricia Bullrich, whose party, Together for Change, obtained 41% of the votes. This result contrasts with the total for Argentina, where the center-right candidate obtained 23.83% of the ballots, which has prevented her from entering the second round.

Javier Milei does make it to the second round, whose candidacy, La Libertad Avanza, came in second place in Spain with 36.74% of the votes.. The liberal candidate had a more significant percentage of support in Spain than in the Argentine nation as a whole, where he obtained 29.98% of the ballots.

The great winner of the night was, at the same time, the great loser in the Argentine vote in Spain. Sergio Massa only obtained 22.25% of votes in Spanish territory, compared to the resounding 36.68% overall that gave him victory in the first round of the presidential elections.

The vote of Together for Change is the great unknown in the Argentine political panorama, which could tip the balance on one side or the other. In the case of Argentines residing in Spain, the right has added a resounding 77.74% of the votes, which could unite on November 19 in Milei's candidacy.

The elections of last October 22 have stood out for the high participation of Argentines residing in Spanish territory. According to official sources, in large Spanish cities more than 10% of the census has participated, a historical record.

The vote took place last Sunday in the six consulates that the Argentine Republic has in our country: in the cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Cádiz, Vigo, Mallorca and Tenerife. In almost all the consulates the same trend could be observed: in Barcelona, for example, Bullrich obtained 35% of the votes, compared to 33% for Milei and 24.5% for Massa. In Madrid, Together for Change won 41% of the ballots, La Libertad Avanza 31% and Unión por la Patria 18%.

Milei's result in the islands was surprising, where he obtained a comfortable victory. In Tenerife, the liberal obtained 53% of the votes, and in Mallorca 45%.

The same consulates will serve as electoral colleges again on November 19, when Argentines will choose, between Massa and Milei, who will be their next president.

Argentina's 2023 presidential elections will have a second round after the victory against all odds of the Peronist Sergio Massa (36.6% of the votes) over the ultraliberal candidate Javier Milei (30%). The victory of Massa, the leftist candidate and current Minister of Economy, however, is not enough to reach the Casa Rosada as the new president of Argentina.

According to Argentine law, the second round or “balotaje” resolves the result of the presidential elections when there is no clear winner in a first vote.. The Argentine Electoral Code, in its article 148, establishes that, in the event that the winning candidate does not obtain 45% of the votes, or 40% with 10 percentage points of difference over the second, a second round will be held in which the winner will need a simple majority to be the winner.

Given the results of this Sunday, Sergio Massa and Javier Milei will face each other in a second round that must be held, according to the provisions of the law, “within the following 30 days,” according to CNN.

When is the second round in Argentina

Therefore, and based on the calendar, the second round of the presidential elections will be held on Sunday, November 19. For both Massa and Milei, it will be key to capture the vote of the third most voted candidate, Patricia Bullrich (conservative), as well as the rest of the political forces that have been left out of the second round: the Peronist Juan Schiaretti and 3% of the rest. of left-wing options, according to the BBC.

The Minister of Economy Sergio Massa won the elections held this Sunday with 36.68% of votes to the 29.98% of the libertarian economist, Javier Milei, who reversed the positions obtained in the PASO (primary, open, simultaneous and mandatory) held on August 13, when Milei won with 29.86% of the vote and Massa came second, with 21.43%.

More than 9.6 million voters supported the official candidate, despite the difficult socioeconomic context that the country is going through, with year-on-year inflation that rose to almost 140% in September, a poverty level of 40% and an exchange rate gap greater than 200 %.

For their part, almost 7.9 million Argentines supported the disruptive proposals of the libertarian candidate.

Some 35.4 million Argentines were called to the polls this Sunday to elect president and vice president. The Argentine press publishes the results this Monday, district by district.

Massa won votes in more provinces

By province, Massa won votes in almost all of them compared to the August primaries: Buenos Aires, Chaco, Chubut, Caba, Corriente, Formosa, Jujuy, La Pampa, La Rioja, Mendoza, Misiones, Neuquén, Río Negro, Salta, San Juan , San Luis, Santa Cruz, Santa Fe, Santiago del Estero, Tierra del Fuego and Tucumán. While Milei, on the contrary, only gained followers compared to August, and few, in Catamarca, Caba, Entre Ríos and Formosa.

The state most favorable to Massa is Santiago del Estero, in the central north of the country. For its part, Milei has the greatest proportional strength in San Luis and Mendoza, in the west, with 40% of popular support.

Milei has its most loyal electorate in the northern provinces of Salta and Jujuy, and in the interior, such as Córdoba and Mendoza. However, with the exception of Corrientes and Santa Cruz, Massa dominates throughout the east of the country, from Corrientes to Patagonia.

In Córdoba it is striking that by running for president its governor, Juan Schiaretti, Milei won the province, although in eight northern districts the majority voted for Schiaretti.

Buenos Aires, center-right

The capital, the autonomous city of Buenos Aires, located in the central east of Argentina, has fifteen districts and none of them were won by Milei, all of them elected either the center-right of Patricia Bullrich, the most voted in the city (41.22% ) or the ruling party Sergio Massa, the second most voted (32.27%) and with 4 districts in his favor. For its part, Mile obtained 19.84% of the votes, without obtaining a majority in any district, but increasing votes since the August primaries, 55,000 more.

What was the lever to reverse the situation between Massa and Milei from August to October? The media spoke that Monday of a “remarkable recovery of Peronism in Greater Buenos Aires” and an excellent result in the interior of the province as the two axes that marked the national difference in favor of the Peronist.

The second electoral round will take place on November 19 and, as required by Argentine law, a week before, on the 12th, there will be a debate between the two candidates, which will be held in Buenos Aires.

Argentina held its presidential elections this Sunday to elect a new head of government in what promised to be a historic day.. More than 35 million Argentines were called to the polls in the most uncertain elections in recent years, in which the polls pointed to a victory for Javier Milei, the controversial ultra-liberal candidate of La Libertad Avanza, which would have meant a change of government in Argentina.

However, the Peronist candidate of Unión Por la Patria and current Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, gave the surprise by winning 36.6% of the votes compared to 30% for Milei and 23.8% of the votes for the conservative Republican Proposal candidate, Patricia Bullrich.

The percentages, however, are not enough for Sergio Massa to reach the Casa Rosada, and as established by Argentine electoral law, if no candidate obtains 45% of the votes or 40% with a 10-point advantage over the Second, a second round will be held between the two candidates with the most votes, according to CNN.

The turnout in the elections, at 77.67%, has been the second worst turnout figure for Argentines at the polls since the end of the dictatorship in 1983 and the return of democracy.

Massa and Milei will compete in the second round

In the second round, therefore, it will be decided who will be the new president of Argentina. This process, called “ballotaje”, will be held on November 19, and will measure which of the two candidates obtains greater support: whether the left-wing Peronist option of Sergio Massa continues in the Government or, on the contrary, the ultra-liberal candidacy of Javier Milei becomes president.

In his statement after this first electoral victory, Massa thanked his voters, recognized that “the country is experiencing a complex situation” and asked for their trust to form a unity government and “build a new stage for Argentine political history.” after the second round.

For his part, Milei has highlighted the value of contesting a second round “against Kirchnerism”. “In two years we came to challenge the most disastrous thing in the history of modern democracy for power,” said the ultra-conservative candidate, who asked for a vote in the second round for a change in the politics of the Latin American country: “We cannot allow that Kirchnerism continues destroying our lives. “Either we change or we sink.”

These elections are held in the context of a serious economic crisis in Argentina, the third largest economy in Latin America, which suffers inflation of 138% annually, with the peso devalued and 40% of the population living below the poverty line. poverty.

Once again the forecasts failed in Argentina and the ultra-liberal Javier Milei could not materialize at the polls the victory that all the polls anticipated in the first round of the presidential elections.. The surprise came from the Peronist candidate and current Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, who this Sunday won 36.68% of the votes and won with an advantage of 6.7 points over Milei (29.98 %), with whom they will face each other in the second round, on November 19.

“The crack died and a new stage begins on December 10 in my Government,” proclaimed Massa, running before his followers to be in charge of the Casa Rosada.. “I am going to convene a Government of national unity on December 10 as president, calling for the best, regardless of their political strength,” he stated in a triumphalist speech.

But his proclamation as president remains to be seen because Milei is far from defeated.. What's more, far from a faltering speech, the leader of La Libertad Avanza described the results as “the best election in history for liberalism in Argentina” and proudly expressed his chest for having revolutionized the country's politics “in just two years.”

In his trademark passionate statement, Milei accused Kirchnerism, embodied by Massa, of being “a government of criminals who want to mortgage the future of Argentina and deepen its decline.”

And before the cheers of his followers, who did not stop singing the chant “In November whatever the cost, in November we have to win!”, the ultraliberal candidate did not hesitate to appeal to the voters of the Together for Change coalition ( center-right), third force this Sunday (23.85%), to defeat Massa on November 19. “All of us who want change have to work together. “Let's not resign ourselves to mediocrity, we are going for glory in November,” he stated.

That gauntlet extended to center-right voters could be Milei's ace up his sleeve to defeat Massa in the second round and become the new president of Argentina.. In fact, the Together for Change candidate, Patricia Bullrich, already made it clear in her assessment of the results that her votes are closer to Milei than to Massa: “Populism has impoverished the country and I am not the one who is going to come.” to facilitate the return to power of someone who has been part of the worst Government in the recent history of Argentina,” Bullrich proclaimed in reference to the winner of the first round.

Low participation in the first round

Argentina registered this Sunday a 77.65% participation rate, the second lowest since the recovery of democracy after the last military dictatorship (1976-1983), only surpassing the 76.20% of 2007, when the Peronist Cristina Fernández obtained the victory for the first of his two terms (2007-2015).

The second electoral round will take place on November 19 and, as required by Argentine law, a week before, on the 12th, there will be a debate between the two candidates, Sergio Massa and Javier Milei, which will be held in Buenos Aires and may be decisive for the future of Argentina.

The economy will, without a doubt, be the battlehorse that will decide who gains access to the Casa Rosada and could be a burden for Massa as the official candidate.. Argentina has entered a complicated inflationary spiral, the fiscal deficit is out of control and international financial markets are closed for a country that lacks monetary reserves to sustain its currency.

This Sunday at 6:00 p.m. (11:00 p.m., Spanish peninsular time), voting hours for the general elections in Argentina have concluded with a participation of at least 74 percent at closing time, above the figures for the primary elections. , open, simultaneous and mandatory (PASO) in August, according to data from the National Electoral Chamber.

The first results will be known around 10:00 p.m., according to the electoral authorities, who have highlighted that there may still be voters waiting in line to exercise their right, since the legislation provides that a polling station cannot be closed until those who were waiting finish voting. within the centers.

The Secretary General of the Presidency, Julio Vitobello, reported the participation minutes after the scheduled closing time.. “The elections have taken place completely normally (…). According to information from the Electoral Chamber, 74 percent of the voters voted,” he indicated.

In the absence of confirmation as to whether or not participation increases with these lagging voters, participation is the lowest in general elections – both in the first and second rounds – since the return to democracy.

Until now, the lowest figure had been recorded in 2007, when 76.20% of the electoral roll went to the polls in the first round, the only one that was necessary on that occasion to confirm the victory of the Peronist Cristina Fernández, who replaced her husband, Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), took office.

The highest participation was in 1983, in the first democratic elections after the dictatorship (1976-1983), when 85.61% went to the polls to give victory to the radical candidate Raúl Alfonsín.

Some 35.4 million Argentines were summoned this Sunday to elect president and vice president, and also renew 130 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 24 of the 72 in the Senate, and appoint 43 Argentine representatives to the Mercosur Parliament (Parlasur , legislative body of the bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay).

The candidate who achieves 45 percent of the votes or 40 percent with a 10-point advantage over the next most voted option will be elected president.. Otherwise, there will be a second round between the two most voted on November 19.

The candidate of Unión por la Patria (UxP), Sergio Massa, is fighting for the highest position in the country; the candidate of La Libertad Avanza (LLA), Javier Milei; the candidate of We Do for Our Country (HpNP), Juan Schiaretti; the candidate of Together for Change (JxC), Patricia Bullrich, and the candidate of the Left Front and Workers-Unity (FIT-U), Myriam Bregman.

The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has thanked the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, for conveying his support to Israel and has reiterated that Israel's victory over Hamas would be an achievement “for the entire world.”

Netanyahu held talks this Sunday with several Western leaders such as the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, as well as with Sánchez, in which he spoke to them about the unity and determination of the Israeli people to “eliminate Hamas' military and governance capabilities.

Likewise, he thanked his counterparts for their support of Israel's right to defend itself against “the brutal terrorism of Hamas.”. Furthermore, he recalled that he will meet with Rutte and Macron on Tuesday.

In the telephone conversation between Netanyahu and Sánchez, the latter reiterated his condemnation of the Hamas attacks and his right to defend himself “within the limits of international and humanitarian law” although he asked for a “humanitarian ceasefire” and that help reach civilians in Gaza.

The Israeli army has created a new elite force to locate and kill one by one the 2,500 Hamas terrorists behind the massacre on October 7.

The special unit has been created specifically to attack members of Nukhba, itself a commando unit within the military wing of Hamas.

Created by the country's security agency, Shin Bet, the force is named after a Jewish underground organization from World War I, 'Nili', an acronym for a Hebrew phrase that translates as “Eternal Israel will not lie.”

Nili members will operate independently of other Command and Control units that focus on neutralizing attack cells and high-ranking terrorists, The Jerusalem Post reports.

This particular mission is considered “different” as it will encompass both field agents and intelligence personnel.

The Israeli government has already warned that all Hamas members are sentenced, with two accused masterminds of the October 7 attacks topping the list of targets: Hamas military commander Mohamed Deif and political leader Yahya Sinwar. .

Security sources believe the pair are hiding in a network of tunnels built to withstand Israeli bombing, as they have spent years operating in the shadows, according to intelligence reports.

Two weeks after the outbreak of the war between Israel and Hamas, the situation, far from stabilizing, is beginning to have worrying overtones: the conflict has jumped from the Gaza and Israel scene and extends to Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. Tension is maximum in the Middle East and at the same time, the humanitarian crisis worsens dramatically.

The panorama in the 365 square kilometers that the Gaza Strip occupies is increasingly distressing: without electricity, drinking water and fuel for a few days, surviving in this area is increasingly complicated.. Hamas, which controls the Strip, assures that there are more than 4,600 dead and 14,000 injured, while the hospitals are overflowing: there is no anesthesia, no medicines or medical supplies, and the surgical operations are carried out with the flashlights of the soldiers' cell phones. sanitary. According to doctors in Gazan hospitals, only those injured who have a good chance of surviving are operated on.. The rest, they say, are abandoned to their fate.

In the streets the situation is no better. The UN itself has warned that outbreaks of chickenpox, scabies and diarrhea are occurring due to water scarcity, which forces Gazans to drink brackish water intended for agriculture, with the health risk that this entails.

While Israel insists on asking the civilian population to evacuate the area, Hamas assures that more than 40% of the homes in the Strip are totally or partially destroyed.

Humanitarian aid

The call for the arrival of humanitarian aid is desperate, despite the fact that this weekend, one of the key information points of this weekend in the area has been the Rafah crossing.

This border point opened Saturday and Sunday for a few hours for the passage of humanitarian aid bound for the Gaza Strip.. On Saturday there were 20 and on Sunday there were 17 trucks with basic necessities (water, medicines and food) for the civilian population.

In any case, from Gaza, international organizations, NGOs and the Palestinian government consider this aid largely insufficient, despite the fact that the United States is working at the diplomatic level so that the flow of these convoys increases in capacity and frequency.

military escalation

As for the military, Israel's ground offensive in the Strip is imminent, but while it arrives, the aviation relentlessly punishes its military objectives, which in an area as dense as Gaza, also include homes and public buildings.. The Israeli army itself confirmed this Sunday that it had increased pressure in Gaza, and announced the elimination of two senior Hamas officials, among other enemy casualties.

The terrorist group, for its part, assures that hostilities have already begun de facto inside the Strip, where, according to Israel, Hamas is holding 212 Israelis and foreigners hostage after its attack on the 7th, although Tel Aviv warns that the figure is not definitive.

But Israel cannot cope and the fronts are opening everywhere: hostilities have also occurred in the West Bank. Tel Aviv maintains that Hamas terrorists are also hiding in this area and has therefore launched airstrikes that, according to the Palestinian National Authority, have caused at least 90 deaths.

More worrying is the opening of the Lebanese front. The Shiite Hezbollah militia, in perpetual conflict with Israel, has taken advantage of the situation in Gaza to not only threaten with a total offensive if there is ground intervention in the Strip, but they have already launched dozens of attacks with rockets, missiles and mortars into the territory. Israeli.

For this reason, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the evacuation of numerous cities on the border with Lebanon.. Both the leader and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) themselves have warned Lebanon that its entry into the conflict could put “its sovereignty” at stake.. “They are not going to gain anything, but they can lose a lot,” an Israeli military spokesman warned this Sunday.

If the situation is complicated to the north, a little further east, in Syria, the outlook does not look good either: Syria denounces Israeli attacks on the airports of Damascus and Aleppo, with at least one dead. Israel considers that Syria is the gateway for weapons for Hamas from Iran, the main sponsor of terrorism in Palestine, and that is why it punishes these infrastructures.

As if that were not enough, this Sunday afternoon Israel admitted having fired “by mistake” with a tank at Egyptian military positions near the Rafah crossing, the only connection between Egypt and Gaza.. The consequences of this shooting in terms of lives or political repercussions are unknown for now.

Iran has denied that the 16-year-old girl Armita Geravand, brain dead since the beginning of this month of October, is in this state due to beatings by the police caused by not wearing a hijab.

The Borna news agency, under the Iranian Ministry of Sports, maintains that Geravand, a 16-year-old student at the Arwa al Waghgi Technical and Vocational University, “suddenly fainted while boarding a subway car and fell on his back.”

She was transferred by ambulance with the help of Tehran metro personnel.. The information has also been collected by the Tasnim news agency, dependent on the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, the elite military and ideological body of the Iranian Armed Forces.

According to the Borna agency, “unfortunately his prognosis is not promising despite the efforts of the medical staff and it has been declared that he is brain dead.”

Iranian opposition media maintain that the young woman was allegedly attacked by members of the 'Moral Police', the body in charge of ensuring correct compliance with Islamic dress, for not wearing the veil.

The Iranian media broadcast images from the security cameras in which several people take the young woman out of the car “after suffering a drop in tension”, although there is no trace of the previous moments, so several NGOs, including Iran Human Rights (IHR), suspect that the authorities are trying to cover up the incident.