Bloomberg Businessweek Europe - 19.08.2019

P O L I T I C S

32

Edited by

Jillian Goodman

Bloomberg Businessweek August 19, 2019

ver the last 70 years, Argentina has endured

perinflation, government collapse, and the

world’s largest sovereign debt default. It’s spent a

third of that time in recession, a record that almost

deserves its own chapter in economic textbooks.

And yet even the embattled Buenos Aires stock

exchange had never experienced anything like the

48% plunge it took on Aug. 12, a day after left-wing

candidate Alberto Fernández bested the fiscally con-

servative incumbent Mauricio Macri in the presiden-

tial primary by more than 15 points, winning more

than 47% of the vote. The primary is meant to win-

now the slate of candidates, but in reality it serves

as a nationwide poll to preview the official vote for

the presidency, still 10 weeks away.

Macri will stay in the race, but investors and pun-

dits consider his deficit in support too vast to make

up. Fernández, meanwhile, is seen as a promoter

of the same policies that have failed in Argentina

for decades. The whiplash was too much for

investors—poll numbers only days before the vote

had showed the two candidates in a much closer

race. “We have this long transition where it looks

like Alberto Fernández is going to be the president,

but he still has to be elected,” says Daniel Kerner,

Eurasia Group managing director for Latin America.

“With the market tanking and the government not

The

Incre ible

Sinking

Argentina

Markets reeled as the

country whipped back

toward protectionism