Desperate for a way out of a crippling economic crisis, Argentines will vote Sunday in a nail-biter election race between embattled Economy Minister Sergio Massa and the libertarian outsider Javier Milei.
The two men represent starkly different futures for Latin America’s third-largest economy, creaking under triple-digit inflation after decades of debt, financial mismanagement and currency volatility.
Polls show the candidates in a dead heat, with Milei holding such a slight advantage that no one wants to predict an outcome.
Polling opens at 8:00 am local time (1100 GMT) and closes at 6:00 pm (2100 GMT), with results expected a few hours later.
Massa, 51, is a charismatic and seasoned politician seeking to convince Argentines to trust him despite his performance as economy minister which has seen annual inflation hit 143 percent and record poverty levels.
His rival Milei is an anti-establishment outsider, who has vowed to halt Argentina’s unbridled spending, ditch the peso for the US dollar, and “dynamite” the central bank.
Argentines are “on the edge of a nervous breakdown,” said political analyst Ana Iparraguirre of GBAO Strategies, describing tensions over what comes next.
Most are so disgusted with their options that “they’re going to have to choose the lesser of two evils.”
“Unfortunately, one has to