Last minute live coverage of the 2023 elections in Massa, Mili and Argentina

He tried to become president of Argentina in 2015 outside of Peronism, but did not succeed. This Sunday, November 19, current Economy Minister Sergio Massa will face Javier Mili for the country’s presidency.

Who is Sergio Massa?

Sergio Massa, the third partner in the current government coalition Frente de Todos, which took office in 2019 with Alberto Fernández as president and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner as vice-president, knows how to be a trusted official. Then his bitter enemy.

He is a lawyer, 51 years old, and has two children with his wife, Malena Calmarini, current owner of the State Water and Sanitation Agency (AYSA), which operates in the city of Buenos Aires and its surroundings.

In the 90s, when Carlos Menem was president, he began his path in politics in the Democratic Center Union, UCeDé, a right-wing group led by Álvaro Alcácaré that aligned itself with Peronism. Massa would do the same, and in 1999 he was elected provincial vice president. Some figures from the former UCeDé, which was part of Menem’s government, now support the candidacy of right-wing libertarian Javier Milei. But Massa was within Peronism.

Step by step

In 2002, with the arrival of Peronist Eduardo Duhalte as interim president after the 2001 crisis, Massa would be appointed head of the National Social Security Administration (ANSUS), a body that manages one of the state’s main budgets.

He served until 2007, during the entire presidency of Nestor Kirchner, and in 2005, already in the ranks of Kirchnerism, he was elected National Vice-President for the first time, but he resigned without accepting the position. Continue to run the answers.

In 2007 he was elected mayor of Tigre, a party north of Greater Buenos Aires, but he would stay there for less than 8 months. He asked for a leave of absence in July 2008 after the resignation of Alberto Fernández, who had held the post since Nestor Kirchner took over as president in 2003.

Massa will be chief of staff for less than a year. In June 2009, he joined the national delegation led by former President Kirchner in the province of Buenos Aires in third place. Massa was one of the so-called “certificate” candidates who, despite being elected, had no intention of taking office but had the ability to attract votes, as happened in his case.

The list failed under the leadership of businessman Francisco de Narvaez, and after a few days Massa resigned as chief of staff and returned to Tigre Mayor. In 2011, still under the umbrella of Kirchnerism, he was re-elected mayor with over 70% of the vote.

Since then, differences with Kirchnerism have led him to run for vice president again in the 2013 elections, but this time for his own seat, the Renovator Front, and defeated then-presidential candidate Martin Inzarold.

His break with Kirchnerism seemed unrelenting and resulted in his presidential candidacy as an opponent in 2015. His candidacy ended up splitting the Peronist vote and Mauricio Macri would win a run-off in that presidential election against official candidate Daniel Cioli.

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