Argentina will go to the polls for its 2025 national legislative elections on October 26, the National Electoral Chamber confirmed on Thursday. Argentines will renew lawmakers from the upper and the lower houses — 24 out of 72 senators and 127 out of 257 deputies.

For the first time since 2011, Argentina will not hold primaries in 2025. Last month, the Senate suspended them and the population will only vote in the general elections.

“Political parties used the [primaries] as a big national poll paid for by all citizens, a luxury that Argentina cannot afford,” said a communiqué by the Argentine Presidential Office when the upper house voted to suspend the primaries, which were made mandatory in 2009.

This year’s electoral schedule will start on April 19, when the National Electoral Chamber closes the provisional electoral roll. Every Argentine over 16 can vote and those over 18 are legally required to do so. The government automatically registers citizens to vote.

Party alliances and coalitions have until August 7 to sign up, and candidates have until August 17. The campaign will start on August 27.

Virtually all political parties participating this year are embroiled in bitter infighting. Lawmakers from ruling party La Libertad Avanza (LLA) fought publicly in the Lower House the day before the electoral timetable was announced.

Peronism is split between supporters of party leader Cristina Fernánez de Kirchner and Buenos Aires Governor Axel Kicillof. Members of the right-wing PRO are fighting over the degree to which they support President Javier Milei. Founder and ex-President Mauricio Macri is pushing for the party to retain significant independence, while Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, also a PRO member, wants it to be incorporated into LLA.

Meanwhile, former Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta announced he would leave the PRO and run for a new party. The former rising star from the center-right faction of the party suffered a surprise landslide defeat to Bullrich in the 2023 presidential primaries.