Mauricio Macri’s victory marks a shift away from populism for Argentina—and South America

HIS supporters celebrated like the fans of a football team that had won an upset victory in a cup final. Car horns blared. Firecrackers lit up the sky. Yells of “vamos!” rang out among Buenos Aires’s Parisian-style apartment buildings. But the upset they were cheering was political, not athletic. On November 22nd Mauricio Macri, the mayor of the city of Buenos Aires, narrowly defeated Daniel Scioli, governor of Buenos Aires province, in a run-off to become Argentina’s next president.

The result is hugely significant, not just for Argentina but for South America. Mr Scioli ran as the heir of the country’s current president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a charismatic but divisive populist. The election of Mr Macri, who campaigned under the banner of a coalition of parties called Cambiemos (“Let’s Change”), represents a repudiation of her legacy. He will be the first president in nearly a century who is neither a Peronist nor a member of the movement’s weaker rival, the Radical Civic Union.