Two major candidates neck-and-neck in Argentina election

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- Former President Carlos Menem and rival Peronist Nestor Kirchner ran neck-and-neck ahead of a crowded field in Argentina's presidential vote on Sunday, first official results and exit polls showed.

With 5 percent of the ballot tallied, Menem led with 25 percent of the vote -- a whisker ahead of the 23 percent for Kirchner, the governor of the oil-rich Patagonian province of Santa Cruz .

Ricardo Lopez Murphy, a free-market economist and former economy minister, trailed in third with 17 percent.

Exit polls released by the television stations Cronica, AmericaTV, and TodoNoticia, suggested both Menem and Kirchner would be heading to a second round on May 18.

The independent Cronica television network gave Menem 29 percent to 21 percent for Kirchner and 18 percent for Murphy. Other exit polls did not release their final figures.

To win outright, a candidate needs to capture at least 45 percent of the vote or finish with at least 40 percent and a lead of 10 percentage points over the closest rival.

Menem, who dominated Argentine politics as a flamboyant and unabashed free-market advocate from 1989 to 1999, had held a narrow lead in most pre-election polls.

He smiled broadly as the first presidential candidate to vote Sunday, surrounded by chanting well-wishers in his home state of La Rioja in western Argentina.

Hundreds of well-wishers mobbed the 72-year-old former leader after he voted shouting "Mr. President!" His wife, the former Miss Universe Cecilia Bolocco, was not on hand.

Lopez Murphy, who with his walrus mustache and weighty jowls is known as "the Bulldog," cast his ballot in Buenos Aires, telling reporters that voters had a serious choice to make, with their very economic future at stake.

"This a day of great responsibility," he said.

Some 25.7 million voters registered for the election, which was conducted peacefully as soldiers stood guard at many of the 66,735 polling stations nationwide. It was Argentina's fifth election since democracy was restored following the end of a military dictatorship in 1983. Voting is compulsory.

The winner will succeed President Eduardo Duhalde for a four-year term beginning May 25, and will be Argentina's sixth president in less than two years. Duhalde was appointed by Congress early last year after deadly street riots in December 2001 triggered economic chaos and a revolving door of five presidents in two weeks.

But many Argentines struggling to survive the nation's worst economic downturn -- more than one of every two people now lives below the poverty line -- were distrustful the election would bring significant change.

"I walked into the booth and had no idea who I was going to pick," said Arturo Fernando, a former real estate broker who lost his job six months ago. "I have never seen our country this divided."

The next president faces a country that has been ravaged by five years of recession. Official unemployment now is at a near-record 17 percent, although most economists say it is closer to 25 percent.

Throughout the campaign, Menem appealed to the legions of newly poor to vote for him. He reminded them of better times in the 1990s when he was in power and Argentina's economy grew at an average rate of 5 percent a year, successfully embarking on a free-market economic road lauded by Wall Street.

"He's the only one with the experience, both domestically and internationally, who can improve our country," said Alejandro Figueroa, a 31-year-old restaurant worker.

But many critics blame Menem for the economic nightmare that engulfed the nation after he left office in 1999, saying the country overborrowed and clung too long to an overvalued currency that pegged the peso one-to-one with the dollar. He also has been dogged by corruption scandals.

But Menem charges that those who followed him were responsible for the $141 billion debt default and severe devaluation that came after his watch.

The Peronist party, Argentina's largest and the one founded by strongman Juan Peron, headed into the election with support divided among three candidates: Menem, Kirchner and Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, who served as caretaker president for one week in 2001.

Meanwhile, Lopez Murphy, a University of Chicago-trained economist, surged in the polls in the final days, relying on a creative ad campaign that cast him as an outsider.

Lopez Murphy, 51, was economy minister for only two weeks in March 2001 before his tough talk of $4.5 billion in budget cuts to remedy Argentina's growing economic turmoil prompted a Cabinet revolt, street protests and his resignation.