Conservative Macri Wins Argentina Presidential Election

Local Editor

Conservative opposition candidate Mauricio Macri won Argentina's presidential election after promising business-friendly reforms to spur investment in the struggling economy.

Macri's supporters swarmed to the Obelisk in the heart of Buenos Aires' theatre district on Sunday for a giant street party as the ruling party candidate Daniel Scioli conceded defeat.

In the context, Argentina's election body said Macri had 53% of votes and Scioli had 47% with returns in from three-quarters of polling stations. Three exit polls also pointed towards a Macri victory.

Scioli's campaign team said they would wait to see official results before making any statements about the election. But a source at the election body said the result trend was irreversible at this point of vote counting.

On his part, Macri promises to set Latin America's third-biggest economy on a more free-market course after a combined 12 years of leftist populism under Fernandez and her late husband and predecessor Nestor Kirchner.

Eventually, the shift in power in Argentina may reverberate across South America where other left-leaning governments, such as Venezuela and Brazil, are also up against the end of a decade-long commodities boom and allegations of financial mismanagement.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team