Argentine neo-Nazi candidate fails to make it to general election

A neo-Nazi politician failed to garner enough primary votes to qualify for Argentina’s general elections in October.

The primaries on Sunday determined each party’s slate of candidates and tickets.

The candidates that don’t pass the 1.5 percent of the votes, are excluded from the general election.

Alejandro Biondini, a veteran far-right leader who has expressed a fondness for Hitler in the past, got 58,572 votes, or .24 percent of the vote. He needed 1.5 percent to pass the threshold.

In addition to being ultranationalist, Biondini is also staunchly anti-Israel. He has said he would expel Argentina’s Israeli ambassador if he won the presidency.

“I define myself as a clear defender of the Palestinian State,” he tweeted in February. “I repudiate the colonialist genocidal Zionism. I reaffirm it: when I am president I will expel the British and the Israeli ambassadors.”

In launching his campaign, Biondini reiterated his promise and warned the country’s Jewish leadership.

“I said to the DAIA [Argentina’s Jewish political umbrella organisation] that this is Argentina … this is not Israel,” to applause and shouts from a crowd. There was violence in the street before the event.

The ticket of former President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner and her former chief of staff Alberto Fernandez led all others in the primaries with 47.65 percent of the vote. Kirchner is the vice presidential candidate, while Fernandez is the presidential one.

Kirchner was indicted for covering up Iranian officials’ involvement in the 1994 Buenos Aires Jewish centre bombing.

Current president Mauricio Macri came in second with 32.08 percent of the vote.