Far-right candidate Javier Milei won the second round of Argentina’s presidential elections on Sunday, November 19, after a tense and indecisive campaign unparalleled in forty years of democracy. His rival, the centrist Sergio Massa, admitted defeat.
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Javier Milei received 55.95% of the vote compared to 44.05% for Sergio Massa. This emerges from the first partial results reported by the President’s General Secretariat after counting more than 86% of the ballot papers.
Javier Milei, 53, “is the president that the majority of Argentines have elected for the next four years,” explained Mr. Massa, the current economy minister, who came first in the first round on Oct. 22. Shortly before the official partial results were announced, he told supporters gathered at his campaign headquarters in Buenos Aires that he had called Javier Milei to “congratulate him and wish him good luck.”
Chronic inflation
The undecided, estimated at around 10%, were key to deciding between Massa, who received 37% of the vote in the first round, and Milei (30%).
The polling stations closed at 6 p.m. and voter turnout was 76%. Around 36 million Argentines were asked to choose between two completely opposite future projects.
On the one hand, Sergio Massa, 51, economy minister for sixteen months in a Peronist executive (center left) from which he has gradually distanced himself. This experienced politician had promised a “government of national unity” and gradual economic recovery, while preserving the welfare state important to Argentine culture.
A climate polemicist
To him, Javier Milei, 53, a right-wing extremist economist, describes himself as an “anarcho-capitalist”. This television polemicist entered politics only two years ago. He is determined to strip the power of a supposed “parasitic caste,” “smash” the “enemy state,” and turn the economy into dollars. The new Argentine president is also an outspoken climate skeptic, for whom climate change is a “cycle” and not the responsibility of humans.
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Latin America’s third-largest economy is going through a difficult period: inflation is currently in triple digits (143% over a year), four out of ten Argentines live below the poverty line, debt levels are worrying and the currency is weakening. Argentinians are exhausted by rising prices from month to month and even week to week when wages fall. The minimum wage is 146,000 pesos (US$400). Rents are out of reach for many, and many mothers resort to barter, as was the case after the traumatic Gran crisis of 2001. According to a study published earlier this year by the University of Buenos Aires, 68% of young people aged 18 to 29 would emigrate, if you could.
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The country is under pressure from the budget consolidation targets of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to which Argentina has to laboriously repay a colossal $44 billion loan granted in 2018.
Allegations of fraud
Javier Milei attracted a “bronca” vote (anger), but also his rhetoric, his desire to dry up public spending in a country where 51% of Argentines receive welfare, or his project to “deregulate the firearms market” were frightening him. The “anti-system” candidate also lowered his vote between the two rounds of voting. Fewer appearances, less clear and one message: “Vote without fear, because fear paralyzes and promotes the status quo.” »
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Adding to the general nervousness, the Milei camp has distilled allegations of fraud in recent weeks without any charges being filed. “Beware of very bad examples of [Donald] Trump and [Jair] Sergio Massa warned that Bolsonaro had spread such messages or not accepted the results.
Mr Milei was greeted at his polling station on Sunday with shouts of “Freedom, freedom!” », had assured that his camp was “good, very calm, despite the fear campaign” against him. For his part, Mr. Massa called on Argentines to vote “prudently, calmly, calmly” and with “hope.” They made a different choice.
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