Argentina
The populist provocateur appears to be the slight favorite over Peronist Sergio Massa as 35 million Argentines vote to elect a new president
Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro and Facundo Iglesia in Buenos Aires
Sunday 19 November 2023, 09:00 GMT
Argentina is on the verge of an unpredictable new political era this weekend, with an unpredictable far-right populist known as “El Loco” (the Madman) the slight favorite to become president of South America’s second-largest economy in Sunday’s election.
As polls opened Sunday morning against a backdrop of rising inflation and widespread poverty, analysts believed that Javier Milei, a television star turned congressman, had a narrow advantage over his rival, Finance Minister Sergio Massa, but said that The result was too close a call.
Massa, a centrist member of Alberto Fernández’s incumbent Peronist government, unexpectedly won last month’s first round with 9.8 million votes to Milei’s 8 million votes. But since then, Milei — a climate-denying provocateur often compared to far-right populists Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro — has been endorsed by several influential conservatives, including former President Mauricio Macri and third-place candidate Patricia Bullrich, who had previously condemned Mileis.” bad and dangerous” suggestions.
Milei has dialed back his inflammatory rhetoric in the weeks since the October vote, hoping to seduce voters turned off by his radical ideas, which include closing more than a dozen ministries and cutting ties with the two Argentina’s largest trading partners, Brazil and China, and the condemnation of the country belong to Pope as a “left-wing son of a bitch”.
“This is the most important election of the last 100 years,” Milei declared this week, calling on voters to expel the “criminal” Peronist politicians who have ruled Argentina for 16 of the last 20 years, “and ruined our lives “.
He said, “Let hope overcome fear. There is hope for a better country.”
Massa has struggled in recent weeks to focus voters’ attention on Milei’s volatile character rather than his government’s economic failures, under which four in 10 Argentines fell into poverty and inflation rose to more than 140%.
How hyperinflation in Argentina could decide the election for the right-wing extremist Milei
“Milei’s personality opens the path to the presidency for Massa,” said Juan Cruz Díaz, managing director of the Buenos Aires consulting firm Cefeidas Group.
But experts say concerns about Milei’s thinking may not be enough to save Massa’s election campaign given Argentina’s economic woes. “This is a failed government with record inflation and he is the economy minister,” said Federico Finchelstein, an Argentine historian who studies the new wave of right-wing populist leaders including Trump, Bolsonaro and Milei. “So [people think]: ‘Between a terrible thing and a crazy guy, let’s be crazy because maybe it’s better than a terrible thing.'”
Finchelstein, who works at New York’s New School for Social Research, doubted that most voters were enthusiastic about Milei’s far-right ideas or his foul-mouthed style. “But you have two really bad candidates and the question in Argentina is: ‘Which one is the lesser evil?'”
According to a Brazilian newspaper, many of the undecided voters who will decide the election saw their choice between Dracula and Frankenstein, with Mary Shelley’s mad scientist Milei standing in for them.
Observers disagree about what a Milei presidency might look like. The prominent wild-haired economist, who only entered politics after being elected to Congress in 2021, has vowed to abolish Argentina’s central bank, replace its currency with the dollar and cut government spending by 14%. During the campaign, he brandished a chainsaw to symbolize his desire to eliminate spending and corruption. His vice presidential candidate, Victoria Villarruel, has ties to members of Argentina’s murderous 1976-83 dictatorship and has controversially challenged the consensus on the number of people killed by that regime.
But Díaz doubted that the far-right libertarian – whose La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) party controls just 38 of 257 seats in the lower house and eight of 72 in the Senate – would have the political “firepower” to push through his most radical plans in the event of one Choice.
“Milei does not have a single governor, Milei does not have a single mayor and its presence in Congress is extremely limited. It will face strong resistance from social movements. “So I’m not sure how likely major reforms are in the first two years,” Díaz said, speculating that traditional politicians like Macri could play an important role in his government, forcing him to moderate.
Sergio Massa is campaigning in Buenos Aires. Photo: Emiliano Lasalvia/AFP/Getty Images
Ariel Goldstein, an Argentine sociologist who has written books about Bolsonaro and Latin America’s authoritarian revival, said a Milei victory would give a boost to his right-wing populists around the world. “Buenos Aires could become a new mecca for the global far right,” Goldstein said, predicting that a Milei victory would also spark deep “social conflict” as protesters opposed his cuts.
That view was echoed on the eve of the election by more than 100 leading economists, who warned that a Milei presidency could cause economic “devastation” and social chaos.
Finchelstein said one of his biggest fears is Milei himself. “He is much more excessive and unstable than Bolsonaro and Trump. Therefore, it is highly unpredictable what this person might do [in power],” he said.
“We are talking about a person who is prone to sudden mood swings, who is very unstable and who, according to some journalistic research, even has a dead dog as a political advisor. “This sounds like a bad joke – but it’s not,” Finchelstein added.
Latin American leftists have also voiced alarm in recent days: Colombian President Gustavo Petro claimed that Argentine voters had a choice between “hope and barbarism,” and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called on Argentina to elect a president “who “Likes democracy and respects institutions.” .
Conservative figures including former Mexican presidents Felipe Calderón and Vicente Fox, Colombia’s Iván Duque, Chile’s Sebastián Piñera and Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa supported Milei’s campaign as a way to “democratically eradicate” the “perverse economic policies” of Massa’s political movement. Vargas Llosa has a poor track record when it comes to supporting presidential candidates, having previously supported defeated right-wing candidates such as Brazil’s Bolsonaro, Chile’s José Antonio Kast and Peru’s Keiko Fujimori.
Milei’s allies reject his portrayal as an unbalanced powder keg, but do not refute claims that their leader seeks advice from his cloned mastiffs.
“They will say anything about us. They say we’re Nazis… We laugh about it. Think what you want,” his close ally Lilia Lemoine said in a recent interview, dismissing the idea that Milei is an extremist.
Lemoine, a cosplayer turned congresswoman-elect, said Milei earned the nickname “El Loco” “because he was very passionate.” “That’s not bad. I mean, you have to be a little crazy to take the risk of going after all this corruption,” she said.
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