Juntos por el Cambio scored victories in 13 provinces nationwide in Sunday’s midterm elections, while Frente de Todos won in nine – a number that included comebacks in the provinces Tierra del Fuego and Chaco.
The two remaining provinces, Río Negro and Neuquén, were won by local coalitions and groupings.
The opposition coalition repeated its successes from the PASO primaries in Buenos Aires City and the provinces of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza, Santa Fe, Corrientes, Jujuy, Chubut, Entre Ríos, Misiones, Santa Cruz, San Luis and La Pampa (the latter three have long been considered historically Peronist regions).
With these victories, Juntos por el Cambio secured key districts that carry the greatest electoral weight in Argentina.
The opposition had won in the provinces of Chaco and Tierra del Fuego in the September 12 primaries, but Frente de Todos managed to reverse the result and take both regions.
In addition, the national ruling party also won in the provinces of Salta, La Rioja, Santiago del Estero, San Juan, Tucumán, Catamarca and Formosa.
In Neuquén, meanwhile, the longstanding provincial coalition Movimiento Popular Neuquino (MPN) won out. Similar scenes played as well as in Río Negro, where the local front Juntos Somos Río Negro, headed by Governor Arabela Carreras, secured victory.
While the results allow the opposition to position themselves as the first electoral force nationwide, it did lose some districts in relation to the PASO. Overall (with more than 98 percent of polling stations reporting) the opposition took more than 41.97 percent of the vote, with Frente de Todos second on 33.57 percent. Left-wing candidates across the country took 5.91 percent of votes, banking four deputies in the process (one in Buenos Aires Aires City, two in Buenos Aires Province and one in Jujuy, where it won 25 percent of the vote).
Frente de Todos, meanwhile, was left with the bitter taste of defeat. Coalition leaders see it more as bittersweet, given the trimming of the opposition’s lead in the key province of Buenos Aires and the turning around of adverse results in Chaco and Tierra del Fuego.
In the northern province, in the PASO, Juntos por el Cambio had won by nine points, underlining the extent of the comeback.
In Tierra del Fuego, in the primaries, the opposition had a four-point lead in its favour, which it could not sustain. Frente de Todos managed to come back with an 11-point swing in its favour.
– TIMES/NA
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