Argentina

In Argentina, centre-right President Mauricio Macri has lost his bid for re-election, losing comfortably to the centre-left Alberto Fernández. Fernández’ Vice President is Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the former two term President.

Fernández won 48% of the vote and Macri 40.5%. Roberto Lavagna, running as an independent, came third with 6.2%. Under the Argentinian modified two round system, a candidate can win in the first round with more than 45% of the vote or by getting over 40% and being 10 percantage points ahead of the next placed candidate. Voting is compulsory for those aged 18-70 and optional for those aged 16-17 and those over 70.

Macri was a pro-business president who promised full employment but leaves office with a crumbling peso and mounting social problems.

Voting also took place for the Parliament but results are not yet confirmed. I’ll update this post when they are.

Uruguay

No results yet so I will update when I get them. This is the first of two possible rounds in the presidential election with a second due on 24th November. The last opinion polls had the centre-left Broad Front on 33%, the right wing National Party on 25%, the populist Open Cabildo on 12% and the liberal Colorado Party on 10%.

Botswana

I wrote about the background here. Despite former President Ian Kahama’s split from the Botswana Democratic Party, the BDP saw its share of the vote go up to 53% and the party won 38 of the 57 seats in the legislature. That’s an increase of one on the previous elections.

The Umbrella for Democratic Change won 36% of the vote and 15 seats, a loss of 3. The newly former Alliance for Progressives came third with nearly 5% of the vote and one seat. The Botswana Patriotic Front, for whom Khama declared his support, won just over 4% of the vote and 3 seats under the first-past-the-post system. The Botswana Movement for Democracy lost its two seats as it polled just over 2000 votes nationwide.