MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

JxC wins Pinamar mayoral elections by just one vote

Ibarguren is Pinamar's current Secretary of Tourism and Economic Development

After Sunday's loss of Unión por la Patria (UP) of Economy Minister Sergio Massa to La Libertad Avanza's Javier Milei in Argentina's presidential runoff elections, the country's ruling party was delivered yet another blow this week when manual counting handed the post of Mayor of the exclusive beach resort of Pinamar in the Province of Buenos Aires to the Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) candidate by just one vote over his UP rival.

The National Court of Appeals in Electoral Matters (CNE) granted a request for the opening of 15 ballot boxes, which resulted in JxC clinging to the office by the smallest difference possible, now with Juan Ibarguren succeeding Martín Yeza.

Ibarguren had been declared the winner by 20 votes over Councilman Gregorio Estanga, which prompted an appeal from UP given the small gap. On Nov. 8, the Province of Buenos Aires National Electoral Board rejected UP's request to open the ballot boxes citing a lack of manifest errors or differences within certificates from party supervisors that might warrant such a decision. The Board thus concluded that it was inappropriate to grant the measure, which -it claimed- should be limited to cases in which notorious flaws in the minutes.

But the CNE overruled such a decision because “This Court cannot overlook -first of all- the small difference of votes between the groups Unión por la Patria and Juntos por el Cambio, which determines that the attribution of the executive office of the town of Pinamar is at stake. Furthermore, the mentioned polling stations are located within a specific territorial division...”

The CNE also found substantial differences in the results of those polling stations when compared to the rest of the section to which they belong, which led to not ruling out the possible existence of errors. The Court also recalled that the Board had acquiesced this year to manually count votes in the city of La Plata, the province's capital, and therefore the same criterion should apply to Pinamar.

Ibarguren is Pinamar's current Secretary of Tourism and Economic Development.