6 pairings seek Argentine Presidency

A total of six pairs of candidates will stand for the Argentinian presidency in October after the primaries held on Sunday left another nine couplings out of the running.

Daniel Scioli, governor for Buenos Aires province and the official candidate for Front for Victory (FPV) is the front runner after the primaries with 38.41 percent of the votes, according to government data updated at 13:05 on Monday in the South American country.

Scioli looks to continue in the footsteps of current President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who has been in power since 2007. Scioli was vice-president to Fernandez's predecessor and husband, Nestor Kirchner, between 2003 and 2007.

Scioli's main challenger is the mayor of Buenos Aires city, the center-right Mauricio Macri who, with his party the Republican Proposal (PRO), won within the Let's Change (Cambiemos) coalition.

Macri gained 24.18 percent of the votes which was enough to leave other Let's Change candidates Elisa Carrio and senator Ernesto Sanz out of the running.

With three candidates, Let's Change won 30.07 percent of the country's total votes.

In third place, after Scioli and Macri, is national representative Sergio Massa who received 14.21 percent of the vote and won against Cordoba governor Jose Manuel de Sota in the A New Alternative (UNA) coalition.

UNA gained 20.63 percent of the total vote from the two candidates.

The Progressive candidate Margarita Stolbizer came in fourth place on Sunday with 3.51 percent of the vote followed by representative Nicholas del Cano from the Worker's Left Front (FIT) who won over fellow alliance member Jorge Altamira with 1.69 percent of votes.

With it's two candidates, the FIT reached a total of 3.31 percent of the total vote.

The sixth, and final presidential candidate is the senator for San Luis province, Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, who gained 2.11 percent of votes.

According to Argentina's electoral law, pairings can only compete in October's presidential election if they have achieved at least 1.5 percent of the national vote in the primaries.

On Oct. 25, more than 32 million Argentinians will go to the ballot box to choose their future president who will rule for four years from Dec. 10, 2015.