Buenos Aires, March 18 (teleSUR-RHC) Buenos Aires is preparing to elect its mayor, local legislators and ward representatives for the next four years. The candidates have been named ahead of the district’s first ever open, compulsory, and simultaneous primary elections on April 26.

The city’s population represents 9 percent of the national electorate and, according to specialists, its results may predict the presidential election results, which will take place only a few months later on July 5.

Political analyst Analia De Franco says that Buenos Aires is very politicized, and it is a city where voter turnout is usually high. ”It is not just about the electoral volume it has in the nation and the importance of that, but more so because it has historically set the trend on a national scale,” she explained to teleSUR.

The election in Buenos Aires crystallizes the dispute between two radically different political and economic projects: the socially progressive vision of current President Cristina Fernandez on one hand, and the neoliberal right-leaning model put forward by the city Mayor Mauricio Macri and his PRO party, on the other.

According to sociologist and political analyst, Artemio Lopez, Mauricio Macri has governed Buenos Aires for nearly eight years due to a weak and divided opposition, not because he is considered the best option by the residents of the city.

“In my view, Macris administration has been pretty mediocre, and it has never been contrasted or scrutinized in full,” Lopez underlined.