Miguel Lifschitz claimed a narrow victory in Santa Fe.
In an unprecedented result, the three most voted candidates for governor were separated by just 1.5%. With more than 95% of votes counted, Lifschitz was first with 30.69% support, just 2,128 votes ahead of PRO candidate, Miguel Torres Del Sel, with 30.58%. Omar Angel Perotti, candidate for Frente para la Victoria (FpV), came in third with 29.25% of the votes.
A full recount will take place this week, with the provincial authorities aiming to complete the final count by either Thursday or Friday.
After hours of waiting, there was confusion last night when both Del Sel and Lifschitz claimed victory. From the FPCyS camp, Lifschitz affirmed that “Sante Fe continues to be progressive. We have more future than history,” as activists waved the party’s orange and blue flags.
Meanwhile, according to the PRO’s own count, Del Sel should be leading Lifschitz by a 0.7% margin.
PRO leader and Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri addressed the controversies last night: “We have to go through the legal steps, accept the results and do so with the self-criticism that the socialists [FPCyS] didn’t have during the campaign.”
Macri and Del Sel criticised the FPCyS for declaring victory in such a tight race when there were still votes to be counted. “It’s practically a three-way tie, with very little difference between the candidates,” said Del Sel in a press conference. “Both we and the public want to know what the true final result is, because otherwise we’ll start to lose confidence in our democracy and that’s the worst thing that can happen to the country.”
This isn’t the first time that Santa Fe has dealt with polemic elections. During the primary elections that took place back in April of this year, approximately 10% of the votes were found to be uncounted, after the authorities had claimed that there had been a full count. In that case, Del Sel emerged as the candidate with the most votes, narrowly ahead of Lifschitz.
This time, 4.55% of the total votes were left uncounted with the Electoral Tribunal dismissing 304 telegrams from voting tables. Current Santa Fe socialist governor, Antonio Bonfatti explained that: “there are about 300 tables that have not been included because the tribunal couldn’t upload them due to errors, illegibility, or inaccuracies in making the telegram.”
“Our numbers indicate [a victory], but to be prudent and serious, we will have to wait for the definitive count, because it’s a little difference of between 2,000 and 3,000 votes, according to what we’re seeing,” indicated Lifschitz this morning while speaking with radio La Red.
Río Negro
Elsewhere, general elections also took place in the province Río Negro, where governor Alberto Weretilneck was re-elected with 52.72% of the votes, followed by FpV’s Miguel Pichetto, who obtained 34% of the votes.
The landslide victory was seen as a blow to the national FpV government. However, Weretilneck, who launched the ‘Juntos, Somos Río Negro’ alliance this year, dismissed speculation that he would support an opposition candidate in the presidential elections later this year.
“I’m not going to answer to any candidate because it would be incoherent with what happened yesterday,” said Weretilneck in a radio interview this morning. “We have built a provincial political movement.”
Weretilneck was elected as deputy governor in 2011 but served nearly a full term as governor following the death of Carlos Soria just 20 days after taking office.
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