BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Daniel Scioli, the front-running candidate for the ruling party in Argentina's presidential election, said on Tuesday he wanted Carlos Zanini, an adviser from President Cristina Fernandez's inner circle, on his ticket as vice president.
Scioli's choice of running mate for the October presidential elections suggests he will steer a course more in line with Fernandez's unorthodox policies than MAN (MAN.XE) had hoped.
Zanini, legal and technical secretary to the president, rarely makes public appearances but has been broadly described in local media as Fernandez's right-hand man.
The 60-year-old lawyer was nominated in 2003 by Fernandez' predecessor and late husband, Nestor Kirchner.
"I spoke with Cristina (Fernandez) and gave her my point of view. I had said I wanted someone who would complement me in experience," Scioli told TV broadcaster C5N in an interview.
All the presidential candidates are required to list a running mate when they register for the August primary by midnight on Saturday.
Scioli, who is leading in polls, has campaigned on a platform of "gradualismo", or "gradual change", in an attempt to win the support of Fernandez loyalists while also tapping a rich vein of undecided voters demanding change.
Argentina's next president will inherit a broken economy by most standards: inflation running at 20-25 percent, low foreign reserves, a gaping fiscal deficit fuelled by hefty subsidies, negative real interest rates and a debt default.
A moderate within the broad Peronist movement that has ruled Argentina for all but eight years since the return of democracy in 1983, Scioli is more pragmatic and pro-market than Fernandez and says policy changes are needed to get the economy moving.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Walter Bianchi; Editing by Ken Wills)