Reply #6: Argentina's Kirchner Strengthens Grip on Congress (move left as econ booms

[papau]

How do they get 82% of the 26 million voters to cast ballots?


http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=alidQ9wQr2JI&refer=news_index
Argentina's Kirchner Strengthens Grip on Congress (Update1)

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Argentine President Nestor Kirchner increased his grip on congress in mid-term elections, with his party more than doubling seats in the lower house and adding members in the Senate, exit polls and preliminary results showed.
<snip>

Kirchner, 55, led Argentina out of its deepest recession on record, helping spur a third straight year of economic growth. The election gives him more power to increase spending on social programs and to negotiate new contracts with 60 utilities seeking to raise rates, though he remains short of a majority in both houses, analysts such as Rosendo Fraga at Nueva Mayoria said.
<snip>

Kirchner's Victory Party increased its seats in the 257- member lower house to about 100 from 40 and remained unchanged with 16 in the 72-member upper house, according to pollster Ricardo Rouvier, director of the polling firm Ricardo Rouvier & Asociados in Buenos Aires. Half the lower house and a third of the Senate were up for election.

<snip>

Argentina's economy grew more than 8 percent in each of the past two years and is projected to surpass 7 percent growth this year, according to the government. The benchmark stock index more than doubled since his inauguration on May 25, 2003. The peso weakened 3 percent against the dollar in the same period. <snip>