1999 Argentine general election

Presidential election
← 1995 24 October 1999 2003 →
Registered	24,111,270
Turnout	82.32%
Nominee Fernando de la Rúa Eduardo Duhalde Domingo Cavallo Party Radical Civic Union Justicialist Party Action for the Republic Alliance Alliance for Work, Justice and Education Justicialist Consensus for Change Action for the Republic Running mate Carlos Álvarez Ramón Ortega Armando Caro Figueroa States carried 19 +CABA 4 0 Popular vote 9,167,220 7,255,586 1,937,544 Percentage 48.37% 38.28% 10.22%
Most voted party by province (left) and department (right).
President before election Carlos Menem Justicialist Party ElectedPresident Fernando de la Rúa Radical Civic Union
Legislative election
← 1997 8 August 1999 to 24 October 1999 2001 →
130 of 257 seats in theChamber of Deputies
Turnout	82.27%
Party Vote % Seats +/– Chamber of Deputies Alliance for Work, Justice and Education 45.89% 66 +1 Justicialist Party 38.63% 51 −1 Action for the Republic 8.12% 9 +6 Buenos Aires Unity Party 1.57% 1 +1 Democratic Party of Mendoza 1.27% 1 −1 Republican Force 0.54% 1 −1 Neuquén People's Movement 0.48% 1 0 Others 4.04% 0 −2 This lists parties that won seats. See the complete results below. Results by province

Argentina held presidential elections on 24 October 1999. Legislative elections were held on four dates, 8 August, 12 September, 26 September and 24 October, though most polls took place on 24 October.

TheConvertibility Plan, which had helped bring about stable prices and economic recovery and modernization, had endured the 1995Mexican peso crisis, the1997 Asian financial crisis, and other global shocks; but not without strain. Argentine business confidence struggled following these events and unemployment, already higher as a result of a wave of imports and sharp gains in productivity after 1990, had hovered around 15% since 1995. Economic problems also led to a sudden increase in crime, particularly property crime, and PresidentCarlos Menem's unpopularity had left hisJusticialist Party (whose populistPeronist platform he had largely abandoned) weakened.^[1][2]

Having himself experienced the burdens of an economy in crisis, former president and centristRadical Civic Union (UCR) leaderRaúl Alfonsín negotiated theAlliance for Work, Justice, and Education between the center-leftFREPASO, who had finished second in the1995 general elections, and his own UCR party. The Alliance had great electoral success in the1997 midterm elections winning a majority of congressional seats up for election preventing the Justicialist Party from obtaining a legislative majority, though they retained a legislative plurality. Following their initial victory, the party geared for the 1999 elections by nominatingBuenos Aires MayorFernando de la Rúa for president and FREPASO leaderCarlos 'Chacho' Álvarez as his running mate. De la Rúa had overwhelmingly won the party's1998 presidential primaries. ^[es] Álvarez, a formerPeronist who had broken ranks with his party following Menem's turn to the right in 1989, remained the country's most prominent center-left figure following FREPASO's defeat in 1995. He also provided an ideological counterbalance to De la Rúa, a moderately conservative UCR figure who had himself, in1973, previously been the running mate on a UCR ticket defeated by Juan Perón.

The Justicialist Party was badly positioned as the economy re-entered recession in late 1998. President Menem had only worsened its image by flirting with seeking an unprecedented third straight term, though this was barred by theArgentine Constitution. Unable to persuade Congress to approve these plans, he pledged to run again in 2003, stating that "if I had been permitted to run, I am sure I would have won."^[3] His dismissal of de la Rúa as "boring" moreover was effectively used by the Alliance campaign in their ads, by which de la Rúa's tedium became a desirable alternative to Menem's "party" (a reference to the outgoing administration's numerous corruption scandals).^[4]

Broadsides like these only further undermined his party's nominee,Buenos Aires Province GovernorEduardo Duhalde, who as a more traditional Peronist, had been distanced from the President since being elected governor in 1991. Duhalde's own approval suffered, however, as crime rates in theGreater Buenos Aires area (home to 2/3 of his constituents) rose steadily. This weakness was highlighted by theRamallo massacre, a botched police intervention of a bank robbery on September 17 in which members of the force were implicated. An imposing figure in his party despite his diminutive height, Duhalde could only agree on a marginal figure in the party as his running mate: pop musician and formerTucumán Province GovernorRamón Ortega.^[5]

Domingo Cavallo, the economist behind the "Argentine miracle" of the early 1990s, had become unpopular during the 1995 recession. He was acrimoniously dismissed by the President in 1996 following his public allegations of influential "mafias" in Menem's entourage. His statements gained validity, however, following the 1997 murder of a news magazine photojournalist targeted by a shipping magnate close to Menem. Cavallo founded theAction for the Republic, and thus became a further obstacle to Duhalde, who would now lose a large share of the Menem vote to the unpredictable economist.^[5]

The recession, which had begun to ease on the eve of the October 24 election date, remained a central campaign issue. De la Rúa, who had earned plaudits for his fiscal discipline while mayor ofBuenos Aires, stressed the need to crack down on graft and corruption. Besides referring to Menem himself, he pointed to the presence of exiledParaguayan strongman GeneralLino Oviedo (who had been allowed in as a fugitive by Menem) as a poster child of the prevailing state of the rule of law. Duhalde focused on promises to combat the recession and double-digit unemployment. An anticipatedrunoff election was ultimately not needed, since the Alliance obtained 48% of the total vote - winning on the first round by 10% over Duhalde. Cavallo received only 10%, and much of the remainder went to left-wing parties (in contrast to 1995, when the far-right gained top minor-party status).^[5]

The 1999 legislative elections renewed about half of theChamber of Deputies (130 seats); there were no elections to theSenate. The Alliance obtained 63 seats, the Justicialist Party 51, and Domingo Cavallo's Action for the Republic 7. This left the Justicialists in the minority in the Lower House for the first time since 1989.^[6]

• Justicialist Party (populist): GovernorEduardo Duhalde ofBuenos Aires Province.
• Alliance for Work, Justice and Education (social democrat): Chief of GovernmentFernando De la Rúa of theCity of Buenos Aires.
• Action for the Republic (conservative liberal): DeputyDomingo Cavallo of theCity of Buenos Aires.

Provincial elections were held in every province exceptCorrientes. Elections for Mayor of the City of Buenos Aires were held the following May. The Justicialist Party increased their majority among governors by one, to 15; outgoing Vice PresidentCarlos Ruckauf was elected Governor of Buenos Aires Province, the nation's largest. The UCR retained 6, mainly in the Alliance (all but 3 Alliance candidates, in turn, were from the UCR). The Justicialists wrested governorships from the UCR (Córdoba), from theMPF in Tierra del Fuego (which endorsed the Justicialists), and from the far-rightRepublican Force (Tucumán); the UCR, in turn, displaced the Justicialists in Entre Ríos, Mendoza, and San Juan.^[10][11]

• Politics of Argentina
• List of political parties in Argentina

• Legislative elections in Argentina
• 1999 elections in Argentina
• 1999 in Argentina
• Presidency of Fernando de la Rúa
• Presidential elections in Argentina

• Articles with Spanish-language sources (es)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Pages using embedded infobox templates with the title parameter