BUENOS AIRES — As Argentina this week endured a market free-fall at the prospect of President Mauricio Macri’s losing the coming presidential election, the mastermind of the strategy that may well defeat him has remained largely out of sight.

The campaign that former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner has run in advance of the October vote has been uncharacteristically low-key. It’s also a campaign for vice president. At the head of Mrs. Kirchner’s ticket is Alberto Fernández, a moderate leftist with a history of deal-making.

Before Mrs. Kirchner tapped him as her running mate in May, many voters knew little or nothing about Mr. Fernández’s plans for the country. Now, with the country engulfed in a deep recession amid a contracting economy, high inflation and an investor stampede, he may become Argentina’s next leader.

The crucial question for many over the next few months is whether a victory for Mr. Fernández would represent a return to Mrs. Kirchner and her populist policies — or something else.

A huge sell-off of Argentine assets followed Mr. Fernández’s strong showing in a primary election on Sunday, suggesting that investors may interpret his candidacy as a political play by Mrs. Kirchner to return to power.

A former two-term president and current senator, Mrs. Kirchner remains a powerhouse in Argentina, with the best approval rating of any opposition politician. But she is also a divisive figure who has been indicted in 11 corruption cases, and whose heavy-handed interventionist policies many economists blame for the financial morass that Mr. Macri inherited, and failed to turn around.

“Fernández de Kirchner is corrupt and an erratic economic manager, but she’s a master at politics,” said Benjamin Gedan, the director of the Argentina Project at the Wilson Center. “She recognized she was too divisive to recapture the presidency, and she was savvy enough to choose a running mate from outside her highly ideological inner circle.”

And indeed, by earning 48 percent of the vote in Sunday’s primary election — which is intended to narrow the field of candidates, but effectively serves as a preview of voter intentions — Mr. Fernández broke through Mrs. Kirchner’s ceiling of support and the litany of graft and cronyism allegations that have long made her an easy opponent to attack. Mr. Macri, with 32 percent, trailed badly in second place.

Many voters may see Mr. Fernández as a more moderate version of Mrs. Kirchner. Her populist measures might have hampered business growth and left a ballooning public deficit, but they also kept basic services affordable.

Mr. Macri — elected in 2015 after the consecutive governments of Mrs. Kirchner and her husband and predecessor, Néstor Kirchner — put in place severe austerity measures that impoverished many Argentines, without delivering prosperity.

But many experts say Mr. Fernández’s government may be more than a return of Mrs. Kirchner’s brand of government.

While Mr. Fernández, 60, played important roles in the presidencies of Mrs. Kirchner, 66, and of her husband — and has been highly critical of the Macri administration — he was also a harsh critic of Mrs. Kirchner’s. He has broken with her in the past, and could be willing to depart from her policies again.

“He was a partner of Néstor and Cristina, not an employee,” said Luis Tonelli, a professor of comparative politics at the University of Buenos Aires. “They were a team in which he was a minority partner, but he wasn’t someone who simply followed orders.”

Mr. Fernández met Mrs. Kirchner’s husband, Néstor, when the latter was governor of Santa Cruz province, in the south.

When Mr. Kirchner was elected president in 2003, he tapped Mr. Fernández as his cabinet chief. They faced an arduous challenge. Argentina was recovering from a spectacular economic collapse and had defaulted on some $100 billion in debt.

Mr. Fernández played a leading role in mapping out an economic recovery plan by building political alliances and taking advantage of the commodities boom that lifted the economies of Argentina and several of its neighbors.

Mr. Fernández stayed on as cabinet chief when Mrs. Kirchner succeeded her husband in December 2007, but he lasted only a few months. After leaving the government, Mr. Fernández became one of the fiercest critics of Mrs. Kirchner’s administration, often railing against her on political talk shows.

The two reconciled shortly after the 2017 midterm elections, when Mr. Macri’s coalition won a big victory. That led Mrs. Kirchner to declare that she would be willing to forego running for the presidency again if that could unite her Peronist party’s base.

The architect of the détente between the two former allies was Juan Cabandié, a lawmaker in the lower house of Congress.

“It was my idea,” Mr. Cabandié recalls, noting that Mr. Fernández was “very intelligent” and that having a former critic within their ranks could be useful.

Once that reunion happened, the two kept talking “until they started trusting each other again,” said Eduardo Valdés, who was Argentina’s ambassador to the Vatican during part of Mrs. Kirchner’s presidency.

Mrs. Kirchner later credited Mr. Fernández with convincing her to write a memoir that became a runaway best seller, priming her for her political comeback.

But even Mr. Cabandié was surprised when, five months later, Mrs. Kirchner announced she would run as vice president with Mr. Fernández at the head of the ticket.

Those who have known him for decades said Mr. Fernández is particularly well suited for the task. Jorge Arguello, who served as Argentina’s ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2013, recalled that when he and Mr. Fernández were student activists in the early 1980s, Mr. Fernández was often charged with forging alliances between disparate groups.

Close associates also doubt that Mr. Fernández, who is a fan of rock music and named his Instagram-famous collie Dylan, after Bob Dylan, would be a figurehead president under Mrs. Kirchner’s command.

“Alberto is a figure with his own political influence — he isn’t a puppet,” said Jorge Taiana, who served as foreign minister while Mr. Fernández was cabinet chief. “It is clear that Cristina has decided to step to the side.”

After largely staying out of the spotlight for two days, Mr. Fernández gave a brief news conference on Wednesday. Seeking to calm the markets, he said he had no intention of defaulting on Argentina’s debt.

He also said he would like Mr. Macri, 60, to finish out his term — an assurance that reflects the turbulent political history in Argentina, where presidents have been forced from office before their term ends when the economy unravels.

Mr. Macri, who had been despondent on Monday, warning voters that the market crash was a preview of things to come if they voted for Mr. Fernández and Mrs. Kirchner in October, had shifted his tone by Wednesday.

After apologizing for his outburst, the president unveiled a package of short-term measures meant to bring relief to middle-class voters. The initiatives were so hastily put together that the details of one important item — a 90-day freeze on fuel prices — were slow to emerge.

Still, the change in tone appears to have had the desired effect. On Thursday, markets turned around for the first time in the week, with the peso strengthening and stocks rising.

Still, as the presidential contest heats up, many Argentines are bracing for more economic pain.

Alejandro Pintos, 32, who runs a hardware shop in the middle-class Buenos Aires neighborhood of Almagro, said suppliers stopped delivering products for a couple of days and now have increased prices significantly.

“We’re all suddenly 30 percent poorer this week,” Pintos said. “Will people still be able to devote money to fixing their homes if something breaks?”

Others are taking the volatility in stride.

“This is Argentina,” Alejandro Álvarez, a 52-year-old security guard, said. “Look around you. Do you see people panicking? We’re used to this.”

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