Argentina extends voting

First lady Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is favourite to win Sunday’s poll.

Argentine election — Dozens of citizens line up to votein a public school [AFP]

Volunteers and members of the judicial committee had to be called in.

Several candidates, such as Ricardo Lopez Murphy of Recrear, Alberto Rodriguez Saa of the Justice, Unity and Freedom movement and Pino Solanas of the Authentic Socialist party, had complained about the low number of their ballots in the polling booths and the lack of authorities to count the votes.

Lopez Murphy said: “At the last minute the judicial electoral committee has had to take charge of the situation which has already caused some delays.

“What this indicates is the need for a change in the electoral process, or the introduction of an electronic voting system like in Brazil or Paraguay.”

In the Florida area of Buenos Aires, officials were trying out a new electronic system of voting, which authorities said could provide the result of the vote within an hour of polls closing.

Likely winner

If Fenandez wins, she would become the country’s first elected woman president. With all final opinion polls showing a significant win for her, the main question appears to be whether she would obtain an outright victory or be forced to contest a November knockout round against the candidate who comes in second.

For an outright victory, a candidate needs 45 per cent of the ballots, or at least 40 per cent with a 10-point lead, otherwise a run-off vote will be held on November 25.

Speaking to La Nacion newspaper, Elisa Carrio, Fernandez’s closest rival, said: “I think there is a certain possibility of a second round. It depends on the undecided voters, on people voting for other candidates voting for us.”

In depth

Roberto Lavagna, another candidate and a former economy minister who is credited with steering Argentina’s economy back from its 2001 collapse, told the newspaper: “I don’t believe the polls, I think many were paid for by the government and that Cristina de Kirchner is in freefall, especially in the cities.”

Few words

Fernandez herself refused to make any last-minute comments to the media.

Throughout her campaign she gave hardly any interviews and she has remained vague on her policies.

She spent Saturday with her husband, Nestor Kirchner, who is stepping aside after one four-year term as president, in their home region of Patagonia in southern Argentina.

In her final speech on Thursday, she constantly referred to her husband’s term and vowed to pursue his left-leaning policies.

She said: “Now we need to work on the remaining dreams.”

Fernandez has brushed aside figures suggesting Argentina’s economy is overheating with an estimated 20 per cent inflation, slow growth and low foreign investment.

Instead she has pledged to maintain hefty public spending and price controls, in the hope that the high worldwide demand for commodities that has benefited Argentina will continue.

Poor powerbase

The first lady has rebuffed critics who have accused her of being excessive in her designer clothes and use of heavy makeup, which have led some to compare her to Argentina’s iconic Eva Peron.

“Should I disguise myself as a poor person to be a good political leader?” she asked in a rare exchanges with the media.

Fernandez’s powerbase is among Argentina’s poor and she has generated little enthusiasm among her country’s business and monied classes.

Andres Saravia, a 32-year-old salesman working in a shopping centre in Buenos Aires, said: “The poor are the ones who will vote for her. Here in Argentina there is very little middle class [left after the economic crash]. They want things to stay the same.”

Voting monitors

Meanwhile, five of Argentina’s leading opposition parties have joined together in an unprecedented move to monitor the presential election to ensure that all votes are fairly counted.

Al Jazeera’s Omar Khalifa in Buenos Aires, said the move came after Nestor Kirchner had hired a polling firm to conduct exit polls on Sunday.

Exit polls would begin to build a picture of the outcome of the election, before voting ends, potentially changing the result.

The union of parties plan to send representatives to about 3,000 polling booths around the country to prevent electoral fraud from affecting the election’s outcome.

Earlier this week, La Nacion reported that officials from Kirchner’s administration had said they might release results of the surveys while the polls are still open.

Argentine election laws forbid such a move.

Anibal Fernandez, the interior minister, said that it was a “healthy” idea for the opposition parties to monitor the election.

“I think it’s healthy for them to do this. Each of the parties has the right to supervise the election and to send representatives to the voting booths,” he said.

Khalifa said hundreds of people have spent hours queueing at governmental offices to get their identification papers in order to register their vote on Sunday.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies