2nd LD: Opposition candidate Macri wins Argentina's presidential elections

Conservative opposition candidate Mauricio Macri won Argentina's presidential election on Sunday.

Macri, of the conservative Cambiemos (Let's Change) Party, defeated ruling party candidate Daniel Scioli, as official results gave Macri 51.72 percent of the votes and 48.28 percent for Scioli, with 96 percent of the ballots counted.

"It's a historic day, a change of era," Macri said in his victory speech delivered to some 10,000 supporters gathered at a convention center in the northern part of the capital Buenos Aires.

"This change needs to take us toward a future of opportunities so we can grow," said Macri, adding there was no room for political "vengeance" and calling on all Argentinians to work together.

"You made the impossible possible with your vote," he told supporters, and singled out "drug trafficking" as the problem Argentinians now have to "confront and defeat."

Addressing to the nearly half of the electorate that voted for the ruling party, whose social programs have over the years helped thousands of families escape poverty, Macri said his government will not abandon them.

"The neediest and many families that tonight are concerned," said Macri, adding they have nothing to fear "because we will be by your side and you aren't going to lose any of what you have acquired."

Scioli, meanwhile, conceded "change has been voted for," adding that he hoped it will be a change for the better.

The opposition's message of change appeared to have resounded with an electorate concerned by high inflation and a slowing economy.

The pro-business Macri said he will lead a government that will differ from the ruling party by aligning itself more with U.S. foreign policy and taking a more conciliatory stance toward creditors.

The presidential runoff drew a large turnout, with nearly 80 percent of the country's more than 32 million eligible voters going to the polls, according to the National Electoral Bureau.

At a press conference, Justice and Human Rights Minister Julio Alak, whose agency runs the electoral body, said the day's events had unfolded "with absolute normality, order, peace, a high-level of security, organization and supervision." X "According to preliminary estimates, participation reached 78 percent of the electoral roll," he added.

The son of an Italian-born business magnate, Macri, 56, successfully served as president of top football club Boca Juniors for 13 years before becoming deputy and later trying his hand at running the country's largest city in 2007.

In the high-profile job of the mayor of Buenos Aires, he became the face of Argentina's conservative opposition, and often clashed with the federal government. In 2011, he was reelected mayor with more than 64 percent of the votes in a runoff.

Outgoing President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who came to power in 2007, concludes her second four-year term in December. She was preceded by her husband Nestor Kirchner, who served as president from 2003. Endi