“Argentina’s economic policies are yielding results.” This recent verdict by the IMF on Buenos Aires’ progress with its $57bn bailout programme was not shared by voters, who delivered a resounding rejection of President Mauricio Macri in a nationwide primary election on Sunday. A quirk of the political system, the primary is mandatory for voters and includes all candidates, providing a good gauge of sentiment ahead of October’s presidential election. The unexpectedly large margin of Mr Macri’s defeat — almost 15 percentage points — has confounded expectations of a tight race and shattered the incumbent’s confidence. It makes a Macri comeback exceedingly challenging and may herald a first-round victory for the Peronist ticket of Alberto Fernández and former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

Those seeking an explanation for the scale of Mr Macri’s primary defeat do not have far to look. Argentina is in the grip of recession. Inflation is running at more than 50 per cent, unemployment has topped 10 per cent and the purchasing power of salaries has plunged. To be sure, Mr Macri’s inheritance from Ms Fernández nearly four years ago was dire: a sickly economy and an outsized fiscal deficit. His aim of restoring Argentina to health through wide-ranging economic reforms was laudable. But Mr Macri’s timing, which pushed necessary and painful change into the second half of his four-year term, was faulty. As the election approaches, the short-term costs of austerity appear to have become unbearably high for most voters and his room for manoeuvre is minimal.

Questions may also be asked about the IMF’s record-breaking rescue package for Argentina, with which its outgoing director Christine Lagarde was closely associated. The fund has an unhappy history with Argentina, having agreed more than 20 programmes, most of which ended in failure. The latest chapter started with a $50bn bailout in June 2018, increased by $7bn three months later in return for accelerated budget savings. The IMF assured critics it had learnt the lessons of past failures and that its package would mitigate the impact of austerity on the poorest Argentines. Yet the decision to “front-load” disbursements means that most of the lending will have been spent by the time of the election, reducing leverage over any future administration.