This Sunday, Javier Gerardo Milei will take office as President of Argentina. The 53-year-old liberal-libertarian economist, who became known as a right-wing provocateur who shouted and cursed on television, mutated over the course of the election campaign into a professor-like politician who denied much of what he had previously said. After the election victory, the change continued and he became a more pragmatic leader than he appeared, willing to make alliances with everyone until he formed a small Frankenstein cabinet: it becomes ministers with no experience in the public sphere have administration, with Macristas and even Peronists.
Beneath all these layers of onion remains the essential milei that upholds the goal for which she entered politics: dismantling Argentina's troubled welfare state and seeking the absolute dominance of the market. What has changed are the paths, the deadlines and the main actors through which the radical transformation of Argentina is being pursued. He wants it to happen as quickly as possible, but given the parliamentary weakness of his La Libertad Avanza party, he will have to negotiate every step he takes.
Milei begins his term with the legitimacy of more than 14 million votes, 55.6% of those who took part in the elections in the second round against the Peronist Sergio Massa. “The presidency is the most important party in Argentina, especially at the beginning,” says sociologist Pablo Semán. In his opinion, Milei will also have a window of opportunity until the opposition reorganizes itself. The alliance with the hard wing of Together for Change has blown up the coalition founded in 2015 by Mauricio Macri and Peronism. “The ruling party, which has now become the opposition, has not only suffered an electoral defeat, but is also surprised by the defeat, demoralized and has lost its word,” he added.
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“Milei is a person who has demonstrated a political skill that no one is willing to recognize, and I believe that he combines a certain degree of inflexibility in his strategic goals, namely the largest possible market, with tactics aimed at combining forces to achieve these goals. “It defines alliances that seem contradictory but do not surprise me because they are typical of any political leader who tries to accumulate forces,” says this sociologist and author of the book “It's Among Us.” Where does the far right come from that we didn't see coming, and how far can it go? Political scientist Valeria Brusco agrees: “That’s what I thought [Milei] He wouldn’t make it because he seemed to lack the necessary social and emotional skills, so I was surprised by his political skills.”
Many of Milei's voters were excited by his populist promises: abolish the privileges of the “political caste,” fire inefficient civil servants, stamp out inflation, crack down on criminals and the corrupt, and revitalize the economy with fewer taxes and more labor flexibility. Others, even if they had doubts, voted for him to oust Kirchnerism from power, which has ruled for 16 of the last 20 years.
The leader of La Libertad Avanza has begun to reinforce his promises before taking office. It will reduce inflation, he says, but it will take at least two years to get it under control. He will cut taxes, but first we must stabilize a dying economy. Until then, severe turbulence threatens: Argentina needs a budget adjustment and the impending major cuts in government spending will reduce economic activity and increase unemployment. In parallel, the lifting of foreign exchange restrictions and the removal of subsidies for public transport, gas, lighting and electricity tariffs will trigger inflation above the current 142%. Their voters appear willing to make these sacrifices at the expense of further slashing meager family budgets. What is not known is the duration.
“I think of it as an analogy to a cancer patient,” says political scientist Celia Kleiman. “If you tell him that he can be cured through surgery, he accepts it, even if the operation is bloody and requires a hard postoperative period. The sacrifice is nothing new for many, because they have been making sacrifices for a decade and think that now it is something different and then their salary will be enough to buy a grill, which is complicated for many today, or a car or a Car think department,” he adds.
symbolic gesture
Milei will be sworn in before the Legislative Assembly this Sunday and then breaks with tradition: instead of addressing the lawmakers, he will give a speech on the esplanade in front of Congress Square. It is a populist gesture with great symbolic power: it is aimed at the people and not at the “political caste”. A caste that he can reject in his messages, but which is an essential part of his government.
Economy Minister Luis Caputo and Security Minister Patricia Bullrich were also members of the conservative Mauricio Macri's cabinet. The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Martín Menem, looks back to the 1990s, when his uncle, Carlos Menem, launched a privatization plan that Milei now wants to tackle with even greater ambition. If he keeps his word, public works – on which nearly 400,000 workers depend – will be crippled and left to the private sector. The plan calls for the oil company YPF to return to private hands, as well as Aerolíneas Argentinas and the public media.
“More radical than Trump”
“In Argentina we exaggerate the changes,” emphasizes political scientist Sergio Morresi. “In the 1990s we were neoliberal like other countries in the region, but here we are privatizing things that others are not doing, like the YPF oil company. In Mexico they didn’t privatize Pemex,” he compares. Semán agrees on the depth of change in Argentina and points out differences between Milei and other far-right leaders such as American Donald Trump and Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro. “Milei's rise is more abrupt than that of Bolsonaro and more programmatically radical than that of Trump, and this is happening in a situation of social, economic and political disintegration much greater than in the United States and Brazil and with more fragile institutional boundaries,” emphasizes Seman. “Although it has sexist and authoritarian components, it has a big economic component that doesn't exist [el partido español] Vox,” he continues. The cultural struggle will be bitter if the economic struggle progresses more slowly than desired.
Argentina's decline after successive political failures was key to Milei's victory. The message of today's state increasingly clashed with a different everyday life in which families had to cope with public schools without classes, public transport with delays and cancellations, frequent road closures and long queues for a doctor's appointment. “Many people from the middle class and below have distanced themselves from the state,” describes Morresi, who years ago began to recognize a shift to the right in society led by young men, which is now reflected in the surveys.
This political scientist rules out that Milei's voters fully share his agenda, although he believes they partially agree, or at least agree with a personal interpretation of it. “For carrying weapons [entre los ciudadanos] Many did not understand this, but rather greater police repression; By dollarization they meant stability,” says Morresi. Milei's attacks on the elites also resonated in Argentina's most relegated places, where anti-Buenos Aires centralism sentiment prevails.
right-wing extremist summit
On his X account, formerly Twitter, Milei only appears as an economist. On Instagram, the first thing the Argentine president-elect's more than 4.5 million followers see is advertising for courses to become a stock exchange operator. “Do you want to learn to invest like a real pro? “Learn at @nwprofessionaltraders,” reads Milei’s profile on this social network, recalling the new president’s recent past.
Milei no longer swells on TV while screaming at a model of the central bank. Nor does he say he supports the sale of children or organs, nor does he insult politicians by calling them thieves, useless and parasites. He apologized to Pope Francis, whom he accused of being the representative of evil on earth, and eventually invited Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to attend his inauguration. He changes his mind without blushing, and his team behaves the same way: this Friday he announced in a statement that the cardiologist Mario Russo would become health minister, and less than an hour later he promoted him to minister.
But rebuilding bridges is more difficult than blowing them up. Bullrich withdrew the lawsuit he had filed against her after accusing her of being a “bomb thrower,” but Lula declined to accept an invitation that came later than Bolsonaro, who was present at the inauguration becomes. The investiture will be a summit of the global far right, also attended by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Spain's Santiago Abascal.
Milei's speech on foreign policy remains in line with the United States and Israel, and it remains to be seen what position Argentina will take in a Mercosur that both Uruguay and Paraguay want to make more flexible. Although trade relations with Brazil and China, Buenos Aires' main partners, are maintained, there is evidence that the leading role will now shift to the private sector. There is no shortage of resources: Argentina is one of the countries with the largest reserves of lithium and unconventional gas in the world and is also a strong food producer.
The true face of President Milei will be known starting this Sunday. He is preparing a comprehensive package of measures to begin his term in office and also expects to call extraordinary sessions in Congress. He knows that the honeymoon will be short and that he must act before the impotent opposition wakes up. “We have to remember that we are in summer and that public issues, so to speak, fall asleep in the summer, which is why they are often used to pass complicated laws,” expects Brusco, a member of the Network of Political Scientists. He agrees that the economic situation will deteriorate significantly in the short term and there will be protests, but he believes that the public support with which it begins eliminates the risk of a social outbreak.