Carlos Ernesto Soria (March 1, 1949 – January 1, 2012) was an Argentine lawyer and Justicialist Party politician who served as governor of Río Negro Province from December 10, 2011, until his assassination.

The elder Soria was again arrested amid a crackdown on Peronist protests during a state visit to Bariloche by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower in March 1959, and was imprisoned in Bahía Blanca.

[5] Soria would later be indicted for obstruction of justice in his capacity as Chair of the Joint Committee on the AMIA bombing, and though he was cleared of all charges, the Río Negro PJ dropped him from their party list ahead of the 1999 elections.

His appointment took place on the heels of the September 16 Ramallo massacre, a botched Provincial Police intervention during an armed bank robbery that resulted in the deaths of two hostages.

He became among the leading congressional opponents of President Fernando de la Rúa's austerity package, scuttling a 2000 decree which would have cut public sector salaries (this ultimately took place the following year).

SIDE had produced intelligence reports stating that the overthrow of the national government had been openly advocated in piqueteros' assemblies, and that these were attended by the extremist group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

[5] Phone conversations between minutes before the assassinations between a policeman implicated in the incident and the Undersecretary of Intelligence at the time, Oscar Rodríguez, proved SIDE involvement in the tragedy in subsequent trials.

Soria's principal opponent in the race, UCR nominee César Barbeito, also professed his support of the FpV's standard-bearer, President Cristina Kirchner.