Argentina held a presidential election on Sunday, April 27, 2003. The winning candidate was former Santa Cruz governor Néstor Kirchner.

For the first time since democracy returns (1983), the Partido Justicialista has failed to agree on his president candidate. For that reason three strong candidates from this party were on the ballots (Carlos Menem, Kirchner and Adolfo Rodríguez Saá), none of them officially supported by the Partido Justicialista (PJ).

Due to the December 20 political collapse and De La Rua declination, the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) party (traditionally the oposition of the PJ) popularity has reached the lower level in all his history. For that reason two strong former partisans from the Unión Cívica Radical party have founded two parties based on their personalities (Elisa Carrió has founded a Central left-wing party, and López Murphy has founded a right-wing one).

Flag Ratio: 9:14

With this scenario, five strong candidates were pratically tied in all the previous polls, making a very agressive election. Finally Menem was the first in the final result, but with not enought margin to be elected at the first round. So a runoff voting against Kirchner was needed. After his two periods Menem was very low in popularity, and anticipating an assured lost (the polls were 70%-30% for Kirchner), he finally declined. So Kirchner became president immediately.

Results

See also

• Politics of Argentina
• List of political parties in Argentina

External link

• http://www.towsa.com/andy/ Andy Tow´s Election Atlas: Presidential, Legislative and Gubernatorial elections in Argentina since 1983.