From midnight to noon, Senate Leader Federico Pinedo is gonna be running the show.

See the man on the left? He's going to be the next President of Argentina. But only for about 12 hours.

...It's a little complicated. Let's back up a little.

Marcos Brindicci / Reuters

Current President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner lost her bid to have her heir apparent succeed her in November, with Daniel Scioli losing to Buenos Aires Mayor — and secret dad rocker — Mauricio Macri in a run-off election.

The last few years of Kirchner's time in office have been, for lack of a better phrase, kind of nuts: a prosecutor who accused her government of covering up a terrorist plot from Iran turned up dead; she tried to dissolve the government's intelligence service afterwards; she sort of adopted a Jewish godchild; and, for good measure, mocked Chinese people's accents.

Enrique Marcarian / Reuters

President-elect Macri is due to be sworn in on Thursday at noon. But over the last few days, Kirchner has actually ramped up spending, increased government hiring, growing the deficit, and basically doing everything Macri ran against.

Presumably wanting a clean break and to prevent any possible trickery, he actually filed a petition with the federal courts asking them to rule that Kirchner's term ends at midnight tonight. “This measure is intended to prevent the President from taking decisions that could affect the incoming authorities in the inauguration ceremony on Dec. 10,” the legal filing said.

Ivan Alvarado / Reuters

The courts agreed, but now that leaves Argentina in a place where they'll no longer have Kirchner as President — but Macri won't be sworn in yet either. Enter Senate leader Federico Pinedo: soon to be the shortest-lived president in Argentine history.

Marcos Brindicci / Reuters

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