Mauricio Macri

Mauricio Macri was born in Tandil, Buenos Aires, on 08 February 1959, into one of the wealthiest families in Argentina. Italian immigrants, they worked their way up, acquiring interests in manufacturing, real estate, services and finance. His father was the head of SOCMA enterprises, an economic group that had grown exponentially in the 70s and 80s, mainly due to State contracts.

Macri is noted for directness, a Manichean view of the world, and a discomfort with the niceties of interpersonal communication. These are all qualities that he shared with Nestor Kirchner, his bitter political rival.

He has the degree of Civil Engineer from the Universidad Católica Argentina and completed his training with various studies on Economy and Finance in Argentina and out of the country. He worked, first in the private field, in some companies related with the construction and automotive industries.

Macri’s closest ties to the dictatorship are through his own family business Macri Society, known as Socma. The Macris are one of Argentina’s wealthiest families, and Socma was among the companies that directly benefited from the dictatorship. In 1973, prior to the 1976 military coup that ousted the civilian Peronist government of President Maria Estela de Peron and installed a dictatorship, Socma owned seven companies. When the dictatorship ended 10 years later, in 1983, the Socma corporate empire had expanded to 46 companies.

In 1991 he was an engineer, father of three children, who was mainly concerned with his job, his family and himself. On Saturday August 24, 1991, at 1:15 am he was kidnapped, pushed into a white van that was parked with the engine running and someone at the wheel. he was kidnapped 14 days in the basement of a house in the neighborhood of San Cristobal, exactly in 2882 Garay Avenue. He was kidnapped by rogue police and held for ransom. Those 12 days in captivity made him decide to enter politics.

He began in the public activity in 1995, when he was elected President of Club Atlético Boca Juniors. Macri became a household name during his twelve-year reign as president of the most famous soccer club in Argentina -- the Boca Juniors Club, where he oversaw the team's most successful period in terms of profit and international championships.

In 2001 Macri with a group of citizens decided to create the foundation “Believe and Grow”, with the mission of working in development, design and implementation of public policies in the search for solutions to the problems of the City of Buenos Aires and of Argentina.

He described his presidency of the Boca Juniors Soccer Club as having been an outstanding political education (dealing with issues like access to press and locker rooms, distribution of seats, and business decisions in front of a membership of about 15,000) and said that the Club's national following was his greatest political asset.

In 2005, Macri, as president of “Commitment for Change” made a strategic alliance (Republican Proposal (PRO)) for the elections that were held on October of that year. From 2005-2007, he was National Deputy for the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires.

The 2007 presidential campaign opened early, with President Nestor Kirchner finally admitting that either he or his wife will be the "official" candidate and center-right Republican Proposal (PRO) leader Mauricio Macri essentially declaring his candidacy. In an 08 June 2006 interview with circulation-leading daily Clarin, center-right PRO leader Mauricio Macri said that "he was ready to be a candidate for president," although his formal announcement will likely not come until later this year.

Although Macri felt it would be difficult to beat Kirchner in 2007, he was optimistic about the long-term prospects of his Republican Proposal (PRO) political alliance. He predicted that the economy would start to decline in 2008. Macri said PRO was working to prepare its leaders to assume office in 2011. "We are the first truly pro-market, pro-business political force in nearly 80 years of Argentine history that is ready to assume power."

Mauricio Macri was the leading center-right opposition leader in Argentina. He was one of the only opposition leaders who can compete toe-to-toe with Kirchner's potential candidates in a key electoral district, or make a potentially strong second place showing in a presidential contest with Kirchner himself. Macri was young enough and had sufficient personal resources to enable him to compete for the long term.

Buenos Aires Mayor Jorge Telerman announced that the city elections will be held on June 3, 2007, several months earlier than expected. Telerman's move forced nationally important, center-right leader Mauricio Macri off the fence and into the race for the city mayor position, vice competing in the presidential elections in October. A chance at winning arguably the second most powerful position in Argentina as the mayor of Buenos Aires was too tempting to pass up.

The latest polls actually gave Macri a chance at winning in the city despite months of speculation from political pundits, that Macri could not win in the city and was more likely to run for president. President Kirchner seems dismayed at both the advancing of the city elections and the candidacy of Macri.

Center-right leader Mauricio Macri (PRO) became the new mayor of Buenos Aires, after winning 60.96 percent of the votes in the runoff elections for mayor on 24 June 2007. Macri's win representd the first time since 1911 that a center-right candidate has won in the capital. Of the four mayoral elections held since the city's autonomy in 1994, Macri finished with the largest advantage over his competitor in both the first and second rounds of voting. While Macri's campaign espoused the ideals of efficiency, security, and order, these center-right principles were tempered by vice-mayoral candidate Gabriela Michetti, who was widely viewed as representing more center-left ideals such as "sensibility," solidarity, and equality.

Since, 2011 he was Chief of Government of Buenos Aires City for a second term. The mayor of Buenos Aires, Argentina was re-elected in a runoff July 31, 2011, defeating the hand-picked candidate of President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. With about 99 percent of the votes counted from Sunday's election, Mayor Mauricio Macri had 64 percent. Macri is a businessman and former head of a football (soccer) club. He ran against Senator Daniel Filmus, who took 36 percent of the vote and has conceded defeat. The capital's 2.4 million voters represent nearly 10 percent of the country's voting population.

In the 2015 Presidential campaign, Mauricio Macri, the pro-business opposition mayor of Buenos Aires, promised swift changes to win back investor confidence. Macri planned fast, more far-reaching reforms and says he would start to lift currency controls on his first day in office. "We would normalize flows immediately," said Federico Sturzenegger, a Macri advisor who gained repute turning around the previously loss-making Bank of Buenos Aires.

The election of Mauricio Macri in Argentina’s presidential race came as a welcome victory to the country’s business elite and right-wing parties across Latin America, but he had some dubious ties that could signal a lasting legacy of darker times in Argentina. Macri had been particularly criticized for his indirect ties to the last military dictatorship in Argentina in the late 1970s and early 1980s that cracked down on left-wing activists and political opposition. Many of Macri’s powerful economic backers and corporate allies propped up the dictatorship that benefited them economically.

Macri showed his sympathies for corporate complicity in dictatorship-era abuses earlier this year when he and his party opposed a government move to end impunity for dictatorship supporters. Argentina’s Parliament decided in September 2016 to launch an investigation into how people and businesses participated in crimes committed by the 1976-1983 dictatorship. While the vote passed by a wide margin of 170-14, Macri and his Republican Proposal Party made up the minority of lawmakers opposing the bill.