Argentines will vote in general elections on Sunday that stand to reshape its political map, with both the mainstream parties weakened by the legacy of multiple economic crises and challenged by libertarian outsider Javier Milei.
With annual inflation running at 138 per cent and two-fifths of Argentines living in poverty, the deeply unpopular current president Alberto Fernández, of the centre-left populist Peronist movement, has opted not to run in the presidential election — which will be accompanied by a congressional vote — after almost four years in power.
Former president and current vice-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, leader of Peronism’s more radical left wing, is also absent from the ballot and has been keeping a low profile in the campaign after a corruption conviction in December last year.