Long-term care or shock therapy for a never-ending economic crisis? Argentina, tense as rarely in 40 years of democracy, votes on Sunday in a presidential election that could not be more indecisive, between the centrist Sergio Massa and the ultra-liberal and “anti-system” Javier Milei.
Chronic triple-digit inflation (143% over one year), poverty among 40% of the population despite a tight social safety net, pathological debt and a falling currency paint the picture of the second round. Despite a very slight advantage for Milei, analysts predict “until the vote.”
For Latin America’s third-largest economy, it’s hard to find more contrasting plans for the future.
On the one hand, Sergio Massa, 51, an accomplished politician, economics minister for 16 months in a Peronist executive (center left) from which he distanced himself. And that promises a “government of national unity” and a gradual economic recovery while maintaining the welfare state that is central to Argentine culture.
Opposite him is Javier Milei, 53, an “anarcho-capitalist” economist, as he calls himself, a television polemicist who entered politics two years ago. He defies the “parasitic caste” and is determined to “smash” the “enemy state” and turn the economy into dollars. For him, climate change is a “cycle”, not the responsibility of humans.
Between? Argentines are “going from crisis to crisis and are on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” summarizes Ana Iparraguirre, an analyst at opinion firm GBAO Strategies.
Exhausted by prices that rise month to month, even week to week, as wages fall, including the minimum wage of 146,000 pesos ($570).
Rents are unaffordable for many and mothers resort to bartering, as they did after the traumatic economic crisis of 2001.
According to a study by the University of Buenos Aires earlier this year, 68% of young people aged 18 to 29 would emigrate if they could.
“Just before exploding”
“What exists today doesn’t work for me, so maybe this change would be good,” says Matias Esoukourian, a 19-year-old student who is drawn to Milei and his “passion” due to a lack of “political experience.”
“The economy is about to explode, we can see that. But education and public health worry me a lot,” admits Maximo Alberti, an undecided high school student who voted for the first time at 17. “Neither of them satisfy me. One (Massa) brought problems, but the other (Milei) brings very explosive ideas.”
When deciding between Massa (37% in the first round) and Milei (30%), the key is the undecided, estimated at around 10%.
Milei won a “bronca” (angry) vote in the first round, but 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 afraid too.
“Less support than rejection”
In addition, the “anti-system” candidate varied his speech between the two rounds. Fewer appearances, less clear and one message: “Vote without fear, because fear paralyzes and promotes the status quo.”
That’s why “it’s now less about supporting and more about rejecting” the other, says Gabriel Vommaro, a political scientist at San Martin University.
“It is not love that unites us, but fear,” summarizes the political scientist Belen Amadeo, quoting the famous Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges.
The only certainty: whoever wins, there will be “quick economic decisions that will hurt,” says Ana Iparraguirre.
The country is under pressure from the budget consolidation targets of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to which Argentina is struggling to repay a whopping $60 billion loan granted in 2018.
Adding to the general nervousness, the Milei camp has distilled allegations of fraud in recent weeks without any charges being filed. And five people were arrested on Friday and Saturday for making threats on social media against Mr. Massa or his family.
“Beware of the very bad examples of (Donald) Trump and (Jair) Bolsonaro” who spread such messages or did not accept the results, Massa warned.
Almost 36 million Argentines are called to vote. The first results should be known around 9:00 p.m. (00:00 GMT). The future president will be sworn in on December 10th.