By Amy Booth and Estefania Pozzo

The deadline for Argentina’s parties and coalitions to register candidates for president, vice president, and other key elected positions was midnight on Saturday. That means we now know who will be competing in August’s primary elections.

In Buenos Aires province, citizens are voting for national deputies and senators, provincial governor, and provincial legislators. In Buenos Aires City, national deputies, the mayor, and local legislators are on the ballot.

Coalition by coalition, we break down what you need to know about the major candidates.

Unión por la Patria (ex-Frente de Todos)

After frenetic negotiations that lasted late into Friday, UxP agreed on Economy Minister Sergio Massa and Chief of Staff Agustín Rossi as a unified ticket for the presidential elections. After the announcement, leftist social leader Juan Grabois said that he would run. He had bowed out of the race to back Interior Minister Eduardo “Wado” De Pedro when it appeared that he would be leading the ticket. However, when it was confirmed that De Pedro would not be in the running, Grabois announced he was back in the game. UxP will now have two presidential tickets in the primaries: Massa-Rossi (the majority option, who count with the backing of most Peronists) and Grabois-Abal Medina (who have the support of left-wing activists).

The rest of the lists for Buenos Aires city and province are unified – that is, there is a sole candidate who is not facing competition.

President & vice president: Sergio Massa – Agustín Rossi

• Sergio Massa has been Economy Minister since August 2022, and has played a key role in Argentina’s negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), as well as courting support from China and international organizations. A centrist, he is the leader of the Frente Renovador party, which joined UxP ahead of the 2019 presidential elections. However, he has worked with the opposition in the past and his party is allied with parties from the opposition coalition at the provincial level. Massa counts on the backing of part of Argentina’s business community, who trust him not to pursue heterodox economic policies. His centrist track record and previous work with figures such as ex-president Mauricio Macri mean he is less popular among UxP’s leftist wing.
• Agustín Rossi is President Alberto Fernández’s Chief of Staff, a role he has held since February. He was previously head of the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI, its Spanish acronym), and has participated in Kirchnerist governments since 2005 as a congressman and defense minister. In a May video announcing his presidential run, he said his priorities were growth, social inclusion, income redistribution, and bringing Argentines “tranquility.”

President & vice president: Juan Grabois – Paula Abal Medina

• Juan Grabois is a leftist social leader known for his work organizing marginalized informal workers. In 2018, he founded the Frente Patria Grande party. A devout Catholic, he has worked closely with the Vatican’s human development projects. A victory in August’s primaries is highly unlikely, but he is popular among leftist activists and student organizations.
• Paula Abal Medina is a sociology lecturer and researcher with Argentina’s National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET, its Spanish acronym). Her parents both served as Peronist politicians.

Buenos Aires Province Ticket

BA province governor: Axel Kicillof – Verónica Magario
National Senate: Eduardo Wado de Pedro – Juliana Di Tullio
National Deputies: Máximo Kirchner, Victoria Tolosa Paz, Mario “Paco” Manrique, Cecilia Moreau, Santiago Cafiero, Luana Volnovich, Rodolfo Tahilade.

Buenos Aires City Ticket

BA City mayor: Leandro Santoro
National Deputies: Paula Penacca, Eduardo Valdés, Lorena Pokoik, Itai Hagman
Local legislature: Matías Lammens, Mariela Bielli, Matías Barrotaveña, Claudia Neira, Alejandro Grillo, Silvia Velázquez, Claudio Ferreño y Graciana Peñafort.

Juntos por el Cambio

Opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) will define its presidential candidate in August’s primaries. There are two tickets: one led by Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and another by Patricia Bullrich, both of the Propuesta Republicana (PRO) party.

In Buenos Aires province, the country’s largest electoral district, Larreta and Bullrich have each presented their own candidate lists. In Buenos Aires City, both support Vicente Lopez Mayor Jorge Macri, cousin of ex-President Mauricio Macri, for mayor, but they have presented different lists of national deputies.

Although he counts on the support of both presidential candidates, Jorge Macri will have to compete against Martín Lousteau of the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) for the coalition’s nomination.

Horacio Rodríguez Larreta (President) – Gerardo Morales (Vice president)

• Horacio Rodríguez Larreta (PRO) has been mayor of Buenos Aires City since 2015. He is campaigning as a moderate and skilled alliance-builder who says he has made Argentina’s capital cleaner, safer, and more efficient. However, social movements say that under his watch, the city hasn’t done enough to protect the poor. His list includes libertarians and anti-abortion conservatives.
• Gerardo Morales (UCR) is the governor of the northern province of Jujuy. Like Larreta, his image is of a modernizer who will get Jujuy —and, if elected, the country— running like a well-oiled machine that’s open for business. However, this stance has involved promising to end roadblocks and crack down on social protest, and a constitutional reform curbing the right to protest ended in massive police repression just days before his nomination.

Buenos Aires Province Ticket

BA province governor: Diego Santilli – Gustavo Posse
National Senate: José Luis Espert – Cynthia Hotton
National Deputies: Miguel Ángel Pichetto, Silvia Lospenatto, Pablo Juliano, Mónica Frade, Federico Suárez, Mariana Stilman.

Buenos Aires City Ticket

BA City mayor: Jorge Macri
National Deputies: Maximiliano Ferraro, Mariela Coletta, Álvaro González.
Local legislature: Franco Rinaldi, Gimena Villafruela, Facundo Del Gaiso, Patricia Glize, Matías López, Silvia Imas, Sergio Siciliano.

Patricia Bullrich (President) – Luis Petri (Vice president)

• Patricia Bullrich (PRO) is the former Security Minister of Mauricio Macri. She represents the hard right of the coalition and was PRO party president until recently. A dynamic character, Bullrich was a member of the Montoneros Peronist guerrilla during the 1970s, a member of the UCR’s coalition La Alianza at the end of the 1990s, and is remembered by many as the Labor Minister responsible for cutting all state employees’ salaries and pensions by 13% before the 2001 crisis. If elected, she has promised iron-fisted security policies and a tough stance on protest.
• Luis Petri (UCR) is a lawyer by training who served as a national deputy for Mendoza between 2013 and 2021.

Buenos Aires Province Ticket

BA province governor: Néstor Grindetti – Miguel Fernández
National Senate: Maximiliano Abad – María Eugenia Talerico
National Deputies: Cristian Ritondo, Karina Banfi, Nicolás Massot, Patricia Vazquez, Martín Yeza, Lorena Petrovich, Sebastián Salvador, Felicitas Beccar Varela, Alberto Aseff, Mercedes Joury.

Buenos Aires City Ticket

BA City mayor: Jorge Macri
National Deputies: Maximiliano Guerra, Daiana Molero, Damián Arabia, Silvana Giudici, Oscar Moscariello.
Local legislature: Franco Rinaldi, Gimena Villafruela, Facundo Del Gaiso, Patricia Glize, Matías López, Silvia Imas, Sergio Siciliano

La Libertad Avanza

Javier Milei (President) – Victoria Villarruel (Vice president)

• Javier Milei, currently a national deputy for Buenos Aires City, is famous for raffling off his government salary because he sees receiving cash from the state as illegitimate. A far-right libertarian economist and founder of the coalition La Libertad Avanza, Milei advocates for a minimal state and the elimination of taxes and currency policies. His party opposes social movements and demands like feminism, climate activism, Indigenous rights, and social welfare programs. Milei scornfully refers to career politicians as “the caste” and has claimed that if elected, he’d “burn down the Central Bank”. His stock is rising among disillusioned voters who feel neither JxC nor UxP has fixed Argentina’s ailing economy.
• Victoria Villarruel is a national deputy for Buenos Aires City. Milei praises her experience in security and defense — but she is notorious for defending those who perpetrated crimes against humanity during Argentina’s last dictatorship.

Buenos Aires Province Ticket

BA province governor: Carolina Píparo – Francisco Oneto
National Senate: Juan Nápoli
National Deputies: Alberto “Bertie” Benegas Lynch, Marcela Pagano, Guillermo Montenegro, María Lorena Macyszyn, Pablo Ansaloni, Juliana Santillán, Eduardo Falcone, Liliana Lemoine, Santiago Santurio.

Buenos Aires City Ticket

BA City mayor: Ramiro Marra
National Deputies: Diana Mondino, Oscar Zago, Sandra Pettovello, Julio Goldestein.
Local legislature: Eugenio Casielles, Pilar Ramírez, Edgardo Alifraco

Hacemos por nuestro país

Juan Schiaretti (President) – Florencio Randazzo (Vice president)

• Juan Schiaretti, governor of Córdoba province since 2015, is a Peronist but opposed to Kirchnerism. In early June, Larreta said he was in talks for Schiaretti to join JxC, but the move faced opposition from Bullrich and Mauricio Macri, who felt that Schiaretti’s stances were too far from theirs to reconcile the differences. He is unlikely to win, but his coalition could score enough seats to tip the balance in close debates.
• Florencio Randazzo is a national deputy for Buenos Aires province who served as Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s Interior and Transport Minister between 2012 and 2015.

Buenos Aires City Ticket

National Deputies: Diego Bossio, Venónica Noemí Tenaglia, Facundo Martín Amor, Sandra Nancy Mansilla.

The Herald is awaiting confirmation of the full Hacemos list

Frente de Izquierda y de Trabajadores – Unidad (FIT-U)

TheWorkers’ Left Front (Frente de Izquierda y los trabajadores) is a coalition of different leftist parties. They will define their candidates for the elections in an internal vote. There are two lists: one led by Myriam Bregman – Nicolás del Caño and another by Gabriel Solano – Vilma Ripoll. All districts presented their own candidates

Myriam Bregman (President) – Nicolás del Caño (Vice president)

• Myriam Bregman is a national deputy for Buenos Aires City. Her coalition, FIT-U, defends socialist ideals and workers’ rights. She is highly unlikely to win —her running-mate Nicolás del Caño got just over 2% of the vote in the 2019 presidential elections— but they are likely to hold a few seats in Congress.
• Nicolás del Caño is a national deputy for Buenos Aires province who ran for president in 2019. Born in Córdoba, he rose through the ranks as a Trotskyist student leader.

Buenos Aires Province Ticket

BA province governor: Rubén “Pollo” Sobrero – Nathalia González Seligra
National Senate: Graciela Calderón, Javier Hermosilla
National Deputies: Christian Castillo

Buenos Aires City Ticket

BA City mayor: Jorge Adaro
National Deputies: Patricio Del Corro
Local legislature: Andrea D’Attri

Gabriel Solano (President) – Vilma Ripoll (Vice president)

• Gabriel Solano, a lawmaker in the Buenos Aires city government, is president of the Trotskyist Partido Obrero (Workers’ Party).
• Vilma Ripoll is a nurse and leader of the Movimiento Socialista de los Trabajadores (Socialist Workers’ Movement) who has previously served in the Buenos Aires City government.

Buenos Aires Province Ticket

BA province governor: Alejandro Bodart
National Senate: Romina Del Plá, Nahuel Orellana
National Deputies: Néstor Pitrola, Andrea Lanzette, Alejandro Bodart

Buenos Aires City Ticket

BA City mayor: Vanina Biasi
National Deputies: Jessi Gentile, Alejandro Lipcovich, Juliana Cabrera
Local legislature: Celeste Fierro, Jeremías Cantero, Amanda Martín