Salta Governor Juan Manuel Urtubey (photo courtesy of Urtubey for Governor 2011)
Salta Governor Juan Manuel Urtubey from Frente Justicialista Renovador para la Victoria came ahead in his provinces’s open, simultaneous, and mandatory primaries (PASO), obtaining 47% of the vote against runner up Juan Carlos Romero from the Romero + Olmedo alliance (Frente Renovador and PRO), with 33%.
Urtubey celebrated his victory, saying that “we want to go ahead and not go back to the past, we want to go ahead with inclusion.” The governor critised the opposition and highlighted “the strong inclusion that took place in Salta, because today [for yesterday] there was a clear confrontation between an inclusion project against the economic powers.”
The national government sought to capitalise on Urtubey’s victory ahead of the provincial and national elections that will take place this year. Interior and Transport Minister and presidential pre-candidate, Florencio Randazzo, was one of the Frente Para la Victoria (FPV) leaders to consider Urtubey’s victory as “an important [display of] support to the policies of the national government.”
Romero, however, questioned the results, saying that the government had tampered with the electronic voting system and committed “one of the most massive frauds in the history of the province.”
Left-wing Partido Obrero (PO) came third with 7% of the vote and celebrated the result. They also highlighted the 12.5% of the vote the received in the capital mayoral primary, and the “first place” obtained by their candidates in that district for privincial legislators and town council members.
The primaries were meant to define the candidates for the general election that will take place on 17th May, and in which Urtubey will seek to be reelected for a third term. However, each party presented just one candidate for governor and most presented one ballot for provincial deputies and senators. Only one party -Movimiento Independiente Justicia y Dignidad- was unable to obtain the 1.5% of the vote required to participate in the general election.
The city of Salta was an exception, as the primaries effectively defined the candidate for mayor for the Romero + Olmedo alliance. There, Sergio Massa’s candidate Gustavo Sáenz beat PRO candidate Guillermo Durand Cornejo by a difference of less than one percentage point (22.42 against 21.75%). Urtubey’s man, Javier Durand, came first with 22.79% of the vote, however Romero + Olmedo’s combined vote almost doubles that of the pro-government candidate.
Next Sunday, the provinces of Mendoza and Santa Fé will hold primary elections, and on 26th April it will be the turn of the City of Buenos Aires.
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