No one presidential candidate gained enough votes to win outright, but the scheduled runoff was cancelled when former president and first-round winner Carlos Menem pulled out just 4 days before the planned runoff on 18 May, handing the presidency to runner-up, Santa Cruz Province Governor Néstor Kirchner of the Front for Victory.

For the first time since the return of democracy in 1983, the Justicialist Party (PJ) failed to agree on a single presidential candidate.

[1] After the political collapse at the peak of the economic crisis that led to the resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa at the end of 2001, popular support for the UCR was at historically low levels.

Menem obtained the most votes in the first round, but far short of a first-round victory (about 24%), so a runoff election against Kirchner was required, and was scheduled for May 18.

Finally, Congress sanctioned Kirchner as president-elect, with the lowest vote share ever recorded for a president in a free election.

They added 12 seats in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies, as well as 2 governorships, and fears of a high number of dissident tickets did not materialize.

Argentina celebrated 20 years of continuous democratic rule on December 10, 2003, with a new government carrying generous numbers of allies in Congress and the provinces, as well as voters' high expectations.