Manuela Castañeira

Manuela Jimena Castañeira (born 22 November 1984) is an Argentine sociologist, feminist activist and politician. She is the leader of the Trotskyist Movimiento al Socialismo (Nuevo MAS) and was the party's presidential candidate in the 2015, 2019, and 2023 general elections. In all occasions, she did not receive enough votes in the PASO primaries to make it past the threshold to participate in the general election.

Early life and education
Manuela Jimena Castañeira was born on 22 November 1984 in Paraná, Entre Ríos. She studied sociology at the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Social Sciences. She also works at a non-teaching position at the National University of General San Martín (UNSAM).

Political career
Castañeira became politically active after moving to Buenos Aires from Entre Ríos to study sociology at UBA. As a member of the Movimiento al Socialismo, she became interested in feminism and actively participated in the campaign to legalize abortion in Argentina, becoming a leading voice in Las Rojas ("the Red [Female] Ones"), the feminist wing of the Nuevo MAS.

Despite their shared Trotskyist orientation, the Nuevo MAS did not join the Workers' Party, the Socialist Workers' Party or Socialist Left in forming the Workers' Left Front in 2011. She first ran for President of Argentina in the 2015 primary elections; her ticket alongside Jorge Ayala received 0.46% of the votes, under the 1.5% required to cross the threshold of the primaries and participate in the general election. In the 2017 midterm elections she ran for a seat in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies in Buenos Aires Province as part of the "Izquierda al Frente" list, formed by the Nuevo MAS alongside the Socialist Workers' Movement (MST), but the list received a little over 1% of the primary votes and did not participate in the general election.

Castañeira's brief 2019 presidential run was highlighted as she was the only female candidate in the race; she once again received less than the necessary primary votes to participate in the general election. She had another unsuccessful run for Congress in 2021.

She ran once again for president in 2023.