Argentina’s PASO Primaries

!!!

Argentina’s compulsory, simultaneous, and open federal primaries, known as the PASO, took place on August 9, 2015.  Parties selected their candidates for president and both houses of congress.  Since public opinion polling in Argentina is considered suspect and unreliable, the votes received in the PASO are considered the strongest indicator of where the race for President will go in late October.  The overarching question is whether the ruling faction of left-leaning Peronistas, which won the most votes, will hold onto the big chair with the departure of the term-limited President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, and especially, whether they will do it in the first round.