The outcome of the recent primary elections in Argentina has left the political class in limbo. In an electoral system where uncontested primaries act as a de facto general election, the huge number of votes that went to Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s Frente de Todos was so overwhelming (47 percent versus Macri’s 32 percent) that victory in the general elections is numerically irreversible.

The so-called “Fernández formula” has thus emerged as a virtual government poised to replace the devastated administration of Mauricio Macri. However, Argentina’s convoluted electoral system forestalls the inevitable, creating a paradoxical and volatile situation: conservative president Macri has lost all real political power but maintains the formal kind, while the moderate Alberto Fernández wields real power but must wait to be formally invested in December.

Although Argentina’s primary system is meant to be an election for party and coalition candidates who will run in the October general election, the unexpected results of the August primaries have given birth to a new, de facto administration. Institutional norms stipulate that the numbers from the August polls must be confirmed two months later in October, and that the new president can only take office in December. That is to say, Argentina has four long months ahead.