Javier Milei, presidential candidate, in Buenos Aires, August 7, 2023. LUIS ROBAYO / AFP
“Does anyone think it’s good to steal? » The question from Javier Milei, candidate in the presidential election on October 22nd in Argentina, goes nowhere. His audience, business leaders gathered at the Council of the Americas conference in Buenos Aires on August 24, opposed him. The end result is a weak “no”. The 52-year-old ultra-liberal economist can recover: “Okay, then why do we allow the state to steal?” »
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After his surprising breakthrough in the August 13 primary election – a mandatory ballot that serves as a dress rehearsal for the presidential election, in which he came first with 29.86% of the vote – Milei still needs to convince to win the election, especially in the facility. For almost fifty minutes he unfolds his radical and controversial program: drastic cuts in government spending, lower taxes, “state reform” with a reduction in the number of ministries to eight, closure of the central bank, “dollarization” of the economy or, so on, the simple disappearance of the peso in favor of the American currency. “You have to get Argentina back on its feet, I promise to free you from the state!” he promises the entrepreneurs, who will give him lukewarm applause.
The economy is at the heart of the program of his coalition, both ultra-liberal and conservative, La Libertad Avanza (“Freedom Advances”). In a country crushed by runaway inflation – 124.4% in a year in August – and a poverty rate of 40%, his proposals to end both currency issuance and the “parasitic political caste” hit home , in the black. His positions on other issues contribute to his image as an anti-system outsider. He supports the sale of organs, the free carrying of weapons and finds it not unreasonable that a society allows the sale of children… “People, get out of mental slavery! Be free! », he gives a speech.
According to the polls, he was ahead of the center-left Peronist and current economy minister Sergio Massa and the right-wing candidate Patricia Bullrich in the first round. How could this admirer of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, courted by the far-right Spanish party Vox, an unabashed climate skeptic, a complete liberal – he once mentioned the possibility of “privatizing the roads” – achieve this just two years later? his entry into political life, at the gates of the country’s presidency?
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Powerful campaign mechanic
Supporters of Javier Milei in the streets of the city of San Martin on September 25th. LUIS ROBAYO / AFP
Javier Milei was born in Buenos Aires in 1970 to a housewife and a father who ran a transport company. He turned first to football and then to rock. He was passionate about economics and earned a degree from the private university of Belgrano – which wasn’t exactly the most prestigious. He is a professor, gives lectures, writes articles. In 2016 he was invited to a television show and quickly became the darling of the sets, who were enthusiastic about this eccentric provocateur. Black striped suit jacket, piercing blue eyes, skillfully disheveled hair (“I’m combed by the invisible hand of the market,” he says), he scolds, shouts, insults: “You’re an idiot (…) you.” knows nothing about it [à l’économie] ! » he says to a journalist during a long humiliation sequence for her in 2018.
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