And the day came when an Argentine president told the truth to the citizens. That there is no more money, that lean times are coming, that we are bankrupt and there will be more poor people, that the educational and social situation is dramatic and that what is coming could be even worse. And the most remarkable thing? He received applause. It remains to be seen whether this initial support will last over time. And how much of what you want to do you can do.
Javier Milei took over the leadership of a bankrupt country that, as he recalled in his inaugural speech, is in a “critical” situation, with inflation of 300% per year, which can shoot up to 15,000% per year, with almost 50% of Argentines below Living at the poverty line With a credit line that can reach up to 90% and no access to external credit, all we have left is to resort to shock therapy. There will be adjustments and it will be difficult, he said, although he promised that “almost” everything will fall on the public sector. It remains to be seen how this “almost” will manifest itself.
“It is the last drink to begin the reconstruction of Argentina,” he promised in the speech he delivered on the steps of Congress, facing the population and with his back to the political class gathered in the Legislative Assembly was and had made the decision oath and presented the command attributes: the sash and the presidential staff, in the handle of which a lion – a libertarian symbol – was carved.
This begins a change in time that is depicted in several images throughout the day. With the now outgoing Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who not only received 54% of the vote in 2011 and promised to do “everything,” but also raised the middle finger of her right hand to those who insulted her. Or Milei coming up to shake hands with senior military and security forces officers who have been insulted for years. Or Milei himself, who in his speech referred to the former president of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Julio Roca, who was reviled by the revisionists and received applause for it.
Of course, no one can now claim that the new president deceived them. He won the election with a chainsaw as a symbol of the brutal cuts in public spending he promised. And in his inaugural speech he reiterated that “there is no money”, that we are facing between 18 and 24 very hard months of stagflation, that whoever blocks a road will not receive a social plan and that the permissive “go ahead, go” for Crime and much more is over. further.
What answer did you get? Depends on. Songs of support are heard on the square. “Chainsaw, chainsaw!” they celebrated as he peeled clippings; “Police, police!” when he set limits on social protest and saved the work of the security forces. But those politicians from all walks of life who he denied speaking in the Legislative Assembly are preparing for “resistance with perseverance,” a “time-conscious opposition,” and a negotiation “law by law, article by article.”
Therefore, from now on and throughout his four-year term, Milei will struggle between his desires and his possibilities. Without enough representatives in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate and without its own governors, it will have to act with great cunning to promote the major reform of the state that it considers inevitable to free Argentina from what it sees as 100 years of decadence. But there is a risk of remaining voluntary in the declamation of the diagnosis.
Milei will rely on his talent and staff to forge permanent or temporary alliances in Congress that will allow him to pass certain laws or obtain approval from the courts each time he resorts to decrees out of necessity and urgency . But above all, it will depend on the patience and resilience – a word he highlighted in his speech – of Argentines to face a crisis that, as he warned, could be fatal. And a lot will depend on him, on his ability to give society a perspective for the future, a hope, an ideal.
“No government has received a worse legacy than us,” said Milei, who recalled two black pages of national history in his speech. The first, the “Rodrigazo”, is due to the adjustment plan announced in 1975 by the then Minister of Economy Celestino Rodrigo, which increased some economic variables sixfold. The second? Raúl Alfonsín's hyperinflation.
Surrounded by the King of Spain, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the former President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and other guests, the libertarian economist who entered Congress with pathetic power just two years ago and with him the runoff election in November won 55% of the vote, swinging between the terrible diagnosis and the promise of something better. He declared that “there is light at the end of the road” and that “it will be difficult, but we will do it,” urging Argentines to “stand up, we will get out of this.”
This marks the beginning of a new stage in Argentina that enters uncertain territory. These will be turbulent times that could mark a turning point and make Milei one of Argentina's great presidents that can be counted on one hand… or plunge him into ostracism, where the vast majority of those who do so occupied that Office ended up in the same office in Casa Rosada.
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