In Corrientes, Macri crosses fingers for first provincial win

President Mauricio Macri's ruling Cambiemos coalition is hoping to reaffirm its dominance in northern Corrientes province today, after a spate of losses across the country in primaries and gubernatorial races.

Corrientes' mid-term election sees Governor Gustavo Valdés's Encuentro por Corrientes (ECO, United for Corrientes) leading the polls. 

"We are going to win from north to south thanks to our people, who believe in us", a triumphant Governor Valdés said during the final campaign event on Saturday. He was joined by Macri's Interior Minister Rogelio Frigerio, who Cambiemos coalition members have criticised both publicly and privately for a perceived lack of support for coalition candidates in provincial races.

ECO is composed of a number of parties, most of which respond nationally to Macri's Cambiemos (Let's Change) coalition, but which also include the Socialist party.

So far this electoral year, Cambiemos' candidates have lost gubernatorial races in Córdoba, Río Negro and Neuquén provinces; and primaries races in Chubut, Entre Ríos, La Pampa, Santa Fe and San Juan provinces.

Voters in the province will today vote for one third of the Senate and half of all Lower House seats.

Unlike other provinces and on a national level, Corrientes' Peronist movement has shown less willingness to unite around single candidates, with the movement divided between those supporting former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, dissident Peronism, and an alliance led by former senator Eugenia Into Artaza and the JP-Peronist Party Corrientes branch.

-TIMES/PERFIL