Rosa Lobasso, who is 55 and works as a “therapeutic companion,” was in the crowd last night listening to 53-year-old Javier Milei’s first speech after he won Argentina’s presidential election. He’s back this Monday, let’s see if he can see him again. The mission failed for now, he only managed to catch a glimpse of his sister Karina Milei, who is crucial to the victory. He will continue to wait for his idol at the doors of the Sheraton Libertador hotel in central Buenos Aires, where the far-right liberal economist has his campaign headquarters. As an active activist in Milei’s presidential campaign, Lobasso is convinced that better days will come in the medium term, but she believes that there will initially be a painful period during which she and her compatriots will notice the radical changes in their pockets. One day we will come out of this with enthusiasm,” he declares.
This former voter of the classic conservative right describes the difference between the elected president and former president Mauricio Macri: “Do you want me to tell you in Spanish?” Eggs! Another way of approaching things has already been said [Milei] “It won’t be gradual.”
Since this Monday is a public holiday in Argentina to celebrate Sovereignty Day, the banks, the stock exchange… are closed. Therefore, only on Tuesday will it be possible to measure the impact of the victory of this candidate, who proposes such radical measures as the abolition of the central bank and dollarization as central components of his recipe for normalizing an economy that has been sliding from crisis to crisis for decades.
A few blocks from Mileis Hotel is Florida Street, the epicenter of the irregular dollar exchange. Irregular, but tolerated by everyone and known to every tourist. It is the first place many go to before the Colón Theater, Plaza de Mayo or Bombonera Stadium to stock up on pesos at the blue dollar price, as they call it here: 950 pesos for a dollar. The official exchange rate is almost three times lower, namely 369 pesos. Juliette, 35 years old, is what the locals call a small tree, one of those people who search for customers among passers-by by shouting “change, dollars, exchange house.” He hopes that there will be no sudden movements on Tuesday when the stock market opens, so as not to deter those who buy or sell currencies. But he claims to have no idea what could happen. Economic uncertainty is part of everyday life here.
The first market reactions to the election of Milei, a political outsider modeled on Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, came this Monday from New York. On Wall Street, Argentine stocks have soared, particularly those of state oil company YPF, whose privatization the next president has confirmed.
Every Argentine teenager knows more about the ups and downs of the economy, about exchange rates, about the terms of IMF loans than many European adults. Ignacio Giménez, a 26-year-old hotel receptionist, says he is one of the millions of Argentines who have been “evangelized to liberalism” in recent years by economists like Milei, who have found success as television talk shows. He crosses Florida Street with two friends of the same age: Gianni Pistore, a programmer, and Álvaro Bazán, a mechanical engineer. All three voted for Milei. And yes, they are also surprised that he won by such a margin (almost 12 points).
They have a clear recipe to heal the economy: unify the exchange rate, cut everything superfluous from public spending – “civil servants’ salaries, not social spending,” they say -, make the labor market more flexible, deduct taxes on products, collect more… generally deregulate. It is not at all clear whether this representation fits, but they are very confident. “We know that these are radical changes, that we will all suffer from adapting, that it will be difficult, but it is about achieving a greater good,” says programmer Pistore. And they warn that if Milei deviates from the promised path, they will inform him. You have just arrived in the capital to attend the Roger Waters concert tomorrow. They bought the ticket months ago for 36,000 pesos each ($36 at the illegal exchange rate, almost 100 at the official exchange rate). They paid it in six installments to cushion the impact.