If he wins Argentina’s election, the Casa Rosada candidate says he has nothing to discuss with the Brazilian president
Argentine presidential candidate Javier Milei said President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) is “not just a socialist” but “someone who has a totalitarian vocation.” The statements were made in an interview with the British magazine The Economist.
Milei won Argentina’s Aug. 13 primary and is leading the polls for the Oct. 22 election. If he wins the election, the rightwing politician said he would have nothing to discuss with Lula and Chilean President Gabriel Boric, whom he called a “communist.”
On the other hand, he said, “I wouldn’t have a problem sitting with that one [Luis] Lacalle Pou [Uruguai]I would have no problem sitting with the President of Paraguay [Santiago Peña]I would have no problem sitting down with the President of Ecuador [Guillermo] Lasso. I would have no problem sitting with the President of the United States [Joe Biden]apparently”.
There are fears that if the La Libertad Avanza coalition candidate takes over Casa Rosada, he will try to take Argentina out of Mercosur. However, the move was denied by economist Diana Mondino, who may lead the State Department in the event of Milei’s victory. In an interview with Globo, she said the idea was to modernize Mercosur, not to abandon it.
When asked about former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), with whom he is usually associated, Milei explained that the former head of the executive branch “waged a worthy fight against socialism.” He also said he had doubts about Brazil’s electoral system, suggesting the elections were rigged. “There are some behaviors in elections that are unusual,” he explained.
According to Milei, something similar would have happened in this year’s primaries in Argentina. “We have studies that show that in this election [primárias] we were robbed of 5% [dos votos]”, he explained. “We need to improve the testing mechanisms.”
According to the candidate, the extremist acts of January 8th were organized by the Lula government itself.
Also read:
WHO IS MILEI
Javier Gerardo Milei is 52 years old, has a degree in economics and led the primaries on August 13, 2023 with 30.4% of the vote in the dispute for the presidency of Argentina. He is on the right side of the ideological political spectrum and represents liberal ideas about the economy. He advocates closing the country’s central bank, abolishing the peso and using the U.S. dollar as the local currency.
The candidate is running for Casa Rosada through the “La Libertad Avanza” (in Portuguese: Advances in Freedom) coalition. Milei defines himself as an “anarchocapitalist” and “libertarian” he is against government intervention in society and supports the free market system. He says his program is a “chainsaw” to cut public spending. He claims that global warming is a lie, supports the sale of organs and defends the noncompulsory and private education system.
Read more about who the presidential candidates are in the election on October 22, 2023 in Argentina here.