Economy Minister Hernán Lorenzino delivered the 2013 budget proposal to Congress today, giving the nation a peek into the executive branch’s vision for the coming year.

The proposal predicts an exchange rate of $5.10 to the dollar, growth at 3.4%, and growth in investment at 7.4%. The official inflation rate is estimated to hit 10.7% by the end of 2012 and 10.8% in 2013. Tax revenue is expected to total over $822bn, a 22.7% increase from 2012, reflecting at least in part, a rise in inflation. The trade surplus, according to official estimates, will be more than US$13bn.

The current policy of paying off foreign debt with reserves will be continued up until US$7.8bn. This cap exceeds the US$5.7bn paid in 2012 by 40% and 2011’s US$7.5bn by 5%.

Agustín Rossi, Congressional Head of the Frente para la Victoria (FPV), the same party to which President Cristina Fernández de Kircher belongs, was optimistic about the proposal. He applauded the continuation of “social investment” and debt reduction, and commented that the proposal used a “level of reasonable expectations” for growth. He predicted the Budget and Treasury Commission would begin to consider the proposal next Wednesday and that by late October, the congressional Lower House would have approved it and passed it to the Senate.

The incumbent mayor Mauricio Macri has won the first round of elections in the city of Buenos Aires by a comfortable margin. With over 99% of votes counted, the leader of the centre-right party PRO reached 47.1% of the vote, falling just short of an outright victory (which required 50%). Macri will now run in a second round on the 31st July against Daniel Filmus, the Frente para la Victoria (FpV) candidate, who obtained 27.8% of the vote.

Just as opinion polls had suggested, the two main candidates finished ahead of the rest by a large margin. In third place, the leader of Proyecto Sur, Pino Solanas, won just 12.8% of the votes. When the early results were released, Solanas was the first candidate to speak publicly, acknowledging that he would not get into second round. Solanas said that Proyecto Sur fought against two governments in a very polarised election and that his party will keep fighting with even more strength now.

PRO Victory

A few hours after voting booths had closed the initial results were published, and barely varied from the final results. Macri reached a lead of almost 20 percentage points above his opponent Filmus—similar to the margin that separated President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from the second candidate in 2007’s presidential elections. Yesterday’s result proves that Macri’s popularity in the city of Buenos Aires is at least as unquestionable as President Fernández’ leadership on a national level. However, the defeat of the president’s party is not a surprise because history has shown that the capital is generally anti-peronist.

Among the main three candidates, Macri was the second to speak publicly. When he appeared on the stage at PRO’s headquarters, located in the neighbourhood of Palermo, he gave a speech with a presidential tone (Macri still aspires to be president one day). In it, he said that poverty is not an ideological matter and that he wants to see that all the children of Argentina have opportunities. He also mentioned that the capital is a independent city that will not negotiate or sell its freedom, referring to his constant rivalry with the president and national government because of their political differences. At the end of his speech, just as he did in the past elections, he danced on stage with the rest of his team.

At FpV’s headquarters there was also a festive climate, despite the poor results. The candidate to reach second said that his party has much to celebrate because they had never obtained a similar amount of votes in Buenos Aires mayoral elections—(neither had Macri’s party). Filmus thanked the porteños for making the FpV the main opposition in the capital’s legislature and called on all voters to join him in second round. He mentioned the achievements of his party since 2003 and that “Néstor [Kirchner] and Cristina have shown them the direction” in which to continue. Towards the end of his speech he even quoted Borges, saying that this city has never been founded, but is eternal “like the water and the air”.

Two Horse Race

Weeks before the elections the polls were showing a tendency of polarisation favouring Macri and Filmus, which resulted to be true as combined they collected more than 75% of the vote. This polarisation proved the lack of strength of all opposition parties, since PRO and FpV are currently in office in the city and national governments, respectively. Also the lack of debate on the television show “TN” might have helped the two main candidates. Even though Filmus did attend two debates with Solanas elsewhere, Macri did not and therefore never gave his opponents the chance to question his administration publicly.

In fourth place was for the candidate of the Coalición Cívica, María Eugenia Estenssoro who barely reached 3.3 percent of the votes. Following her with 2 percent was Silvana Guidici, the candidate of the Union Cívica Radical—the party of Ricardo Alfonsín, one of President Fernández’ main opponents in next October’s presidential elections.

Besides electing the next mayor of the city of Buenos Aires, the porteños also voted for seats in the legislature. In order for a party to get one seat it must have reached 3% of the vote. The legislature has in total 60 seats and no party controls an absolute majority. With the current results, Macri’s party obtained two more seats and now has the majority with 26 seats. The FpV lost one seat and now has 14, as opposed to Proyecto Sur who obtained one seat and holds 12. The importance of the city legislature lies in the fact that it approves the capital’s sizeable budget, and could yet open a political trial against Macri for the ongoing espionage case that he is involved in.

Given the amount of votes reached by the incumbent mayor, it seems probable he will win in the second round. The supporters of leftist Pino Solanas would seem more likely cast their ballot against him for being centre-rightist, but Solanas did not publicly endorse Filmus either. Different has been the reaction of the Coalición Cívica, whose leader Elisa Carrió—who will be a candidate for president in October—clearly showed her support for Macri over Filmus. Although this party just received 3.3 percent of the votes, added up to Macri’s 47.1, it’s just enough to win second round.

However, until the 31st July the whole city will witness how Filmus, with support from the national government, will battle with Macri and his PRO to see who will be the next leader of Argentina’s capital.

Lead image by Santiago Trusso

Currently representing the party Frente Para La Victoria as senator, Daniel Filmus is President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner´s pick as candidate to run for mayor of the City of Buenos Aires. Carlos Tomada, the current labour minister, is running as his vice.

It is not the first time Filmus has tried to win this election: in 2007 he was also nominated as the mayoral candidate with Carlos Heller—now a member of the city’s lower house—but finished second behind Mauricio Macri after a run-off.

According to recent polls, Filmus is 10 points behind the incumbent. But with Macri set to fall short of the 50% required to ensure an outright win, a second round of voting looks likely. Already preparing for this eventuality, Filmus has called on other parties with a similar ideology to unite against Macri in a run-off.

Education and Environment

Filmus is 56 years old. In his early years he studied sociology at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and later became a teacher during the last dictatorship. His first government position was in 1989 as director general of education for the City of Buenos Aires, but he resigned to become the director of Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO). Later, in 2000, he became education secretary for the capital while Anibal Ibarra was mayor.

He was appointed minister of education in 2003 by former president Néstor Kirchner. During his time in office he implemented key laws to guarantee teacher salaries, make sex education obligatory, and ensure that pupils receive a minimum 180 class days a year.

In 2007, when he first ran for mayor, he received 40% of the votes in the second round, losing to Macri. A few months later he became candidate for senator representing the City of Buenos Aires and was elected on October of the same year. He remains in this post today.

As a senator he was one of the main proponents of the Glaciers Act, designed to restrict industrial mining around the Andean ice fields. “The right to water is a human right therefore we must claim our right to it,” he said in front of the United Nations, referring to the huge water supplies that the glaciers contain. The law was finally approved in October 2010.

Filmus presided over the Committee of Environment and Sustainable Development and currently presides the Program of Foreign Relations and Cult. He is also vice-president representing Latin America and the Caribbean in the Executive Committee of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO).

The candidate has asserted that, once in office, the environment will be one of his priorities. Filmus has criticized Macri’s plan of renting bicycles and extending bike lanes. The senator said in December 2010 that public transport systems such as the subway, which can be used by more than a million citizens daily, cannot be replaced by renting bicycles.

Debate Row

“The national Government and the City working together”, is written on one of Filmus’ campaign billboards, alluding to the fact that the current mayor and the president belong to opposing parties, which has stalled development in the city.

Filmus decided not to participate in the debate for candidates organised by the news channel TN, which belongs to Grupo Clarín. The candidate has claimed several times that he is willing to debate anytime, anywhere, and criticised Macri for not accepting a debate beyond the opposition news channel. Unable to reach a compromise, the mayoral candidate debate on TN was cancelled for the first time in 15 years.

Since polls show him in second place, some analysts say that Filmus did not want to take risks, particularly against his main rival for the leftist vote, Pino Solanas. However, Filmus did join a televised debate with Solanas and Ricardo López-Murphy (running for the Partido Autonomista) on the América news channel on Monday night, and will appear tonight alongside nine other mayoral candidates in a public debate at the University of Buenos Aires. Macri rejected both.

Earlier in the year, during the television show Con Voz Propia, Filmus criticised his two main rivals for bowing out of the presidential race and targeting the city: “It worries me that Macri and Pino choose the city of Buenos Aires as a second choice because they cannot compete with Cristina at a national level.”