General elections took place in Spain this summer. Millions were worried: it seemed certain that hand in hand with the People’s Party, an extremist group would come to power that denies climate change and sexist violence, wants to abolish sexual education and abortion and the autonomous system, and justifies Francoism and censorship those who think differently. Let’s face it: because of this fear, many who were not particularly attracted to the ruling alliance and who might not have supported it under other circumstances decided to vote for it in order to avoid the abyss.
Parliamentary elections are taking place in Argentina this Sunday. Millions are worried about the possibility of a man coming to power who not only denies climate change and sexist violence, who not only wants to abolish abortion and sex education, justify the genocidal military and censor those who are different from him, but also him wants to end public health and education, allow the trafficking of weapons and organs and possibly children, and in all of this he is following advice from his dead dog’s grave. The Lord, of course, cannot tolerate an opinion that is not his own – and he proclaims it loudly because, as he says, he has “the moral high ground.” The man is scary. The problem in Argentina today is that many of the millions who fear him have no alternative: they don’t know how to vote so that he doesn’t win. This is the climate these days: confusion, fear, hopelessness.
Everything is played between three candidates. The mentally disturbed Mr. Javier Gerardo Milei was born in Buenos Aires in 1970 to the owner of a few buses and a housewife in the then modest neighborhood of Palermo. He was shy and found it difficult to get along with others. He went to a priest’s school, he wanted to be a footballer and failed immediately, he played drums with some friends who did Rolling Stones covers and also failed, he studied economics at a second or third rate university. He made a career working as a financial intermediary for one of the richest men in the country, Eduardo Eurnekián, owner of dozens of airports and many other things. Eurnekián was the one who supported him for years. First, when he advised Peronist candidates and praised Obama. And later, when he became known for his shouts and insults in the media, especially against the state and its politicians, who – Podemos trembles – call “the caste”. In 2021, he ran for deputy and won the seat.
Javier Mieli with a group of his supporters during a campaign rally in La Plata on September 12th. Natacha Pisarenko (AP)
Since then, he hasn’t stopped growing: millions of people who would like to destroy everything supported this man who runs around with a chainsaw – copied from Rand Paul, an American right-wing extremist – to show that he is ready to destroy everything close. These people don’t believe – they don’t believe – that what they are destroying can destroy their very fragile livelihood, but it is so likely. In a completely magical move, the Lord managed to replace the new law: the old law of the jungle is presented as a novelty because its speaker has his hair disheveled, shouts and despises everyone else: “Tremble, you left-handed sons.” “Whore!” is one of their usual slogans. (And among those “communists” he counts Pope Bergoglio, who, in an unusual gesture, gave an interview to Argentina’s state press agency this week to respond.)
With these subtleties, Mr. Milei managed to respond to the urgent need for something different: everyone else has done it so badly that “a 1% chance of change is more than what we already have,” say his voters, and that “so less they are not the same as always” and that it is worth a try. Among young men from the middle and lower classes there are significantly more. They represent, among other things, the desperation of those who can neither find their place nor their future – and this moment when anti-progressivism becomes anti-feminist or vice versa.
Milei – conservative, sexist – managed to inspire them. His politics is anti-politics, which is one of the favorite havens for politicians, and he founded his party with “hurt” people from other parties. If one of them takes part in the local elections, he will hardly receive any votes; When Milei runs in the national elections in his districts, more and more people vote for him – now he has a chance to win the presidency. It is him: his movement is him, and he – always aggressive, paranoid – seems incapable of governing anything.
To achieve this, he had to defeat his two opponents. Next is Sergio Tomás Massa, who was born in 1972 in a suburb of Buenos Aires to a small building contractor and a housewife, both very Italian. He attended a priest’s school and then began studying law and military on the right. There he distinguished himself: he was solvent, smart, he could talk and smile at the same time, and at the age of 22 he was already president of the Liberal Youth. But shortly afterwards he married the daughter of a Peronist leader and became the same: in the government of Carlos Menem, a neoliberal Peronist, he combined his two tendencies and achieved his first public positions – and has never left it since. In this he was consistent; For this he had to be very incoherent: change after change, election after election, apostasy after apostasy, he always retained some kind of power. In 2007, he became mayor/mayor/councilman of his wife’s city, Tigre – that’s the name of the city, not the lady. In 2008, he was Cristina Fernández’s chief of staff and led Kirchnerist speeches; In 2015 he ran against them in an election – and denounced their unbearable corruption; In 2019 he joined the government of Cristina herself and in August 2022, on her orders, he was appointed finance minister of a government and an economy in danger of collapse.
Sergio Massa during the closing ceremony of his election campaign on October 17 in Buenos Aires. JUAN IGNACIO RONCORONI (EFE)
Those who could vote for him to avoid the great threat would have to put aside his failures: in the 14 months of his economic government, inflation is at almost 140%, poverty is at 41% and the dollar, the master of Argentina, is of 290 pesos down to 1,000 – with the invaluable cooperation of Mr. Milei, who a few days ago recommended buying dollars because “the peso is the currency issued by the Argentine politician and is therefore worth less than excrement. “ Still, it is not easy to come to terms with keeping someone in power who has already been in power for more than a year with these terrible consequences: what could he do later that he could not do before? Nor is it easy to forget the lack of reliability of a man who has changed his ideas, parties and policies like underwear – boxers probably.
The other mutant is Patricia Bullrich Luro Pueyrredón, who was born in Buenos Aires in 1956 to a cardiologist and a wealthy woman. Unlike her opponents, products of the desired middle class, Ms. Bullrich is part of the “Porteño oligarchy”: her ancestor Juan Martín de Pueyrredón ruled the country between 1816 and 1819, when it was not even called Argentina, and ever since. Bullrich attended a school for rich girls, but at 17, influenced by her older sister, she joined the Peronist Youth, which supported the Montoneros. In 1975 she was arrested while painting slogans on a wall and spent six months in prison. After the 1976 coup, he went into exile in Brazil. After her return in 1983, she continued her Peronism and was elected deputy in 1993. Seven years later she was Minister of Labor in the failed anti-Peronist government of Fernando de la Rúa. By the mid-2000s he was already a figurehead of the right; In 2015, President Macri appointed her as his security minister – and since then she has specialized. Now he is bukelized: he puts on a war face, talks a lot about criminals and prisons, promises to build more and make them more brutal. She has moved so far to the right that it is difficult for many to vote for her to avoid the escalating threat.
Patricia Bullrich, before a debate between candidates for the presidency of Argentina on October 8 in Buenos Aires.AGUSTIN MARCARIAN (Portal)
And furthermore, Bullrich shares with Massa the burden of the past: she presents herself as a champion of fighting crime, but was already minister for the issue and produced more police excesses and dubious deaths than effective solutions. Now she wants to regain the profile of a tough woman, willing to do anything but follow an order; What she failed to do was convince anyone that she was articulate and intelligent. Your economic statements are pathetic talk in a country whose economy has sunk. The rest is just chatter.
So we Argentines have screwed up: a third want the Lord of Hair to win, and it’s a blow to everyone else, those of us who don’t understand how they can want that, those of us who believe that they want it when they want it That’s because those of us who know the situation is desperate and threatening, but won’t let desperation and brutal threats solve it, haven’t stopped to listen and think about it. Milei has been playing for months: the worse, the better, and celebrates every price increase as a personal triumph. He knows that many people will vote for him under the slogan “We couldn’t be worse.” Their problem is that many people realize that we can do worse, much worse.
But these two-thirds, whom we fear like hunger, do not know what to do, who to vote for and how to resist this fate. There is another big difference with Spain or France: we do not have Sánchez or Macron, a lesser evil to prevent the worst from keeping everything. The dilemma is a difficult one: Will choosing a well-known – and so well-known – villain be the way to avoid an unknown villain? Only a few are truly convinced. It is assumed that many will not even vote – in a country where voting is compulsory.
According to all calculations – yes, the ones that are always wrong – Mr Milei will receive the majority of votes this Sunday, but not enough to win without a second round of voting. His rival in this is a mystery, although many of these guesses point to Massa. This begins another story: How much fear of catastrophe will Milei produce? Enough for millions to vote for a disastrous minister? A country must be very stupid if it seeks salvation in those who have ruined it; It’s very messed up to look for it in a completely insane person.
Summary just in case: Sunday’s election will be decided between an angry man talking to his dog, an economics minister who is driving the economy into ruin, and a former minister who has demonstrated nothing but inefficiency and very little enlightenment. This is Argentine karma, and it is difficult to see an encouraging future. There are those who say that, if anything, a Milei government could be so disastrous that it would be the “best” option: that it would lead the country into such catastrophe that it would have no choice but to do so to reshuffle and give him another Make it serious – while the other Only two seem capable of continuing the old, constant, endless slide into nowhere. The problem is that this millennium catastrophe would endanger the lives of thousands, even millions, of people. There would be hunger, privation and fighting, the road would catch fire and Milei has already hinted that he might use the army to put out the fire.
Argentine karma in all its glory: any result this Sunday will be punishment for these decades of mistakes, deceptions and betrayals. It’s Milei, it’s the other two. Millions of people are wondering which will be the mildest and can’t seem to find an answer at the moment. Even less, one would say, a hope.
Sometimes there are overquoted phrases that suddenly seem to find the situation for which they were coined. Antonio Gramsci, who died in 1937 after many years in a fascist prison at the age of 46, wrote: “The old world is dying and the new world is emerging only slowly. Monsters are born in this chiaroscuro.”
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