On October 22, 2023, Argentines will vote in the country’s next general election. Voters will select the next president, 24 members of the Senate, and 130 members of the Chamber of Deputies, in addition to several provincial and local offices. The country’s president is elected for a four-year term, and presidential candidates must win 45 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff, which would take place on November 19. The center-left incumbent, President Alberto Fernández, announced in April 2023 that he would not seek a second term, despite being eligible to do so. Presidential candidates will be officially selected in an August 13 primary (commonly referred to as the “PASO”), and opinion polls have suggested a competitive race between candidates from the governing Union for the Homeland (UP) coalition, formerly known as the Front for Everyone, the opposition center-right Together for Change (JxC) coalition, and the right-wing Freedom Advances (LLA) coalition, led by libertarian candidate Javier Milei.

Argentina is a vibrant representative democracy, and the country has a clear and relatively fair framework for conducting elections, which are administered by the National Electoral Chamber (CNE) in conjunction with the National Electoral Directorate (DNE), a department of the Interior Ministry. Argentine voters will head to the polls amidst considerable economic, political, and social upheaval. With the incumbent president not running for reelection, much remains unclear about which candidates will appear on the October ballot, and how the new government will address the country’s serious challenges once elected.

Economic concerns are likely to be top of mind for Argentine voters. The Fernández administration has struggled to alleviate the country’s severe economic crisis in recent years, with annual inflation reaching 114 percent in May 2023, the highest rate recorded since 1991. Argentina is deeply polarized, and voters remain divided over which political coalition will most effectively reverse the current economic situation—creating an opening for candidates outside the political mainstream, such as Milei. Meanwhile, the traditional political coalitions have struggled ahead of the PASO. JxC, affiliated with former president Mauricio Macri, who also decided against running again in 2023, has been slow to unite behind a candidate ahead of the election. Minister of Economy Sergio Massa, who UP preemptively selected as its sole presidential candidate ahead of the PASO, has led Argentina’s recent loan negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and has staked his candidacy on pragmatic leadership. However, UP, which is aligned with the country’s often-dominant Peronist working-class movement, lost its long-held congressional majority in the November 2021 midterm election, weakening its electoral standing ahead of the 2023 general election.

Argentina’s democracy also continues to suffer from deeply entrenched corruption, which has reached officials at the highest level of government in recent years and fueled instability. Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who served as president between 2007 and 2015 and is not related to current president Fernández, was sentenced to six years in prison and permanently banned from holding public office after being convicted on corruption-related charges in December 2022, though the sentence will not take effect while an appeals process is in progress. Fernández de Kirchner, who has repeatedly claimed that the court’s decision was politicized, is considered the leader of modern Peronism in Argentina and a dominant force behind current president Fernández’s victory in 2019. She confirmed in May 2023 that she would not seek the presidency in October’s election, despite speculation that she would run.

Freedom House has identified the following as key digital interference issues to watch ahead of election day:

• Harassment and intimidation: Physical violence in reprisal for digital activities is rare in Argentina, though journalists and activists, including those who work online, have been subject to intimidation, harassment, and smear campaigns on social media. Online gender-based harassment poses a prominent threat to women offline. After the attempted assassination of Vice President Fernández de Kirchner in September 2022, the alleged perpetrator was reportedly linked to Rouzed, an online forum that has been known to host hate speech and extremist content. This climate of online hostility, particularly against women, is likely to continue in advance of the October election, and in isolated instances could create a risk of offline harms.
• Information manipulation: Manipulated content has appeared online during previous elections in Argentina, and seemingly organized digital behavior has been connected to political campaigns. Ahead of the 2019 general election, reputation-management agencies reportedly developed tailored social media campaigns for presidential candidates that used trolls and bots to promote negative narratives about opponents. In the past online disinformation tactics in Argentina have often lacked sophistication, such as the spread of crudely manipulated images, or have been quickly disproven, such as claims that former president Macri misspelled “November” in personal notes. While these efforts have had a limited effect on the online information landscape in Argentina, it is possible that more effective information manipulation strategies could emerge before October’s vote.
• Technical attacks: Government entities in Argentina remain particularly vulnerable to ransomware attacks, and digital media outlets have suffered cyberattacks in recent years, creating the potential for digital interference ahead of the October election. Before the previous general election, in October 2019, fact-checking organization Chequeado disclosed that it experienced an alleged denial-of-service (DoS) attack during a presidential debate, forcing the platform to temporarily restrict access to its website for users outside Argentina. More recently, in May 2023, reports emerged that the data of 11 million Argentine citizens had been leaked online, potentially from a previous electoral register. In an electoral context, cyberattacks could undermine Argentines’ ability to access trusted information about the election—either from government or media sources—and create additional vulnerabilities for personal data protections.

Argentina has a score of 80 out of 100, with 100 representing the least vulnerability in terms of election integrity, on Freedom House’s Election Vulnerability Index, which is based on a selection of key election-related indicators. The score reflects a robust electoral system that is stable and generally regarded as free and fair, but where severe economic troubles, corruption, and political polarization have continued to pose challenges for the country’s democracy. The country is rated Free in Freedom in the World 2023, with a score of 85 out of 100 with respect to its political rights and civil liberties; Free in Freedom on the Net 2022, with an internet freedom score of 71 out of 100. To learn more about these annual Freedom House assessments, please visit the Argentina country reports in Freedom in the World and Freedom on the Net.