Former Argentine President Mauricio Macri opts out of running in presidential primary

With just 90 days before the deadline to confirm his candidacy, former president Mauricio Macri announced that he will not run for president in a 5-minute video this morning.

In his video, he praised his 2015-19 administration — which ended in his re-election defeat and in a severe foreign debt crisis which has since saddled President Alberto Fernández’s administration.

“Never again will we be represented by a puppet,” he said in reference to Fernández, who was selected by Vice President Cristina Kirchner to run for president in May 2019.

“Never Again” (Nunca Más) is a motto used by Argentina’s human rights movement calling for the horrors of the last military dictatorship (1976-83) to never be repeated.

Macri, 64, has referred to human rights campaigns as a “scam” — and as president lobbied the Supreme Court to grant the over 1,000 convicted of dictatorship-era atrocities reduced sentences (which they did, before reversing their own ruling).

This message came amid uncertainty among his right-wing coalition, Together for Change (JxC), as Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and PRO party president Patricia Bullrich head to what seems to be a strong competition in primaries — Larreta representing a more moderate faction, and Bullrich supporting far-right policies.

By stepping down from the presidential race without explicitly supporting any of the JxC presidential candidates, he leaves the game open for them to run against each other in the August primaries.

At: https://buenosairesherald.com/politics/national-politics/macri-announces-he-will-not-run-for-president

A downcast former Argentine President Mauricio Macri announcing this morning that he will not run for president this year.

His decision was widely lauded in his right-wing Together for Change coalition — who see Macri as the least electable of their major potential candidates.

Macri, whose 2015-19 tenure resulted in a massive foreign debt crisis, has drawn frequent comparisons to his personal friend Donald Trump — who reportedly pressured the IMF to lend Argentina a record $45 billion in hopes of salvaging Macri's failed, 2019 re-election effort.

President Alberto Fernández, who defeated Macri in 2019, is himself dealing with low approval ratings over his handling of the “Macrisis” — and may reportedly opt out of running as well.