Pedro Sánchez and Sergio Massa.EFE / Portal
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, has pledged his support to the Peronist Sergio Massa with a view to next Sunday’s presidential elections in Argentina. Massa, the current economics minister of a crisis country, will face right-wing extremist Javier Milei in an unpredictable second round of elections. Milei has set the pace of the campaign by attacking the central bank, public education and healthcare, and the consensus of Argentina’s democracy, which turns 40 this year. Massa, who rose from third place in the August primary to first place with the most votes on Oct. 22, has proposed leading a unity government. “In the face of all criticism, Sergio Massa stands for tolerance and dialogue to build an Argentina with inclusive development that leaves no one behind,” Sánchez said in a video. “For this reason, dear Sergio, I send you all my support from Spain and my sincerest wishes for the success of the next elections on November 19th. Good luck winning.”
Sánchez thus joined other presidents and former presidents, such as José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Brazilian Lula da Silva, the Chilean Michelle Bachelet, the Colombian Ernesto Samper, the Uruguayan José Mujica or the Mexican Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who in recent days they have shown their public support for Massa. Many former presidents signed a manifesto this week against Milei’s “anti-democratic positions” and “neoliberal proposals” and supported Massa as a representative of a “program for the defense of democracy and political and social renewal” that protects “the impulse of a progressive European-Latin American Agenda.” Sánchez’s support for Massa, which the Argentine candidate published on his social networks this Tuesday, was “spontaneous,” according to sources from his campaign.
The support from Massa’s environment is “of great importance, as Spain is the second largest foreign investor in the Argentine economy.” Around 300 Spanish companies are creating 100,000 jobs in Argentina, with an investment that will reach $21 billion in 2023. For Massa’s economic agenda, Spain represents a “reliable partner” that can open European markets to Argentina’s mining and energy resources.
On the other hand, former presidents such as Mariano Rajoy, the Colombian Iván Duque or the Chilean Sebastián Piñera, accompanied by the Nobel Prize winner in Literature Mario Vargas Llosa, have supported the candidacy of the far right because “he believes in the ideas of freedom and has a very precise diagnosis regarding them of the country’s economic problems.”
They are not the only ones who have supported the Argentine Ultra. An admirer of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and friend of ultra-Spanish leader Santiago Abascal, Milei was embraced by the Ibero-American far right during the electoral process. Both Abascal’s Vox party and the Bolsonaro family accompanied him as he awaited the results of the first round on October 22. “Milei is the hope of a different Argentina,” Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of Brazil’s former president and his country’s deputy, told EL PAÍS that day. A Vox delegation led by MEP Hermann Tertsch also traveled to Buenos Aires “to closely follow the electoral process and support the presidential formula of La Libertad Avanza,” Milei’s party. The alliance has a long history: in 2021, Milei was one of the signatories of the “Madrid Letter”, which the Spanish Ultra Party propagated in 2021 to form an “anti-communist alliance” in Latin America.
After six months of campaigning and three ballot boxes, the election of a new Argentine president has reached its final week, with rejection taking center stage. Each has pledged its third – Massa received 37% of the vote on October 22nd and Milei 30% – and both faced the final phase of the campaign to convince the rest of the voters that the other is worse. .
Milei, the histrionic economist who denies climate change and the gender pay gap and has even proposed the privatization of nature reserves, rivers and seas, criticized the “political caste” in the campaign and ultimately allied himself with half of it . His conservatism, seeking to re-criminalize abortion or justify military dictatorship, was not a red line for many of the traditional right who support him today. The Argentine political center has exploded in recent weeks: Macri, his former candidate Patricia Bullrich and part of his party have supported Milei, who changed the narrative from “kicking the usual politicians’ asses” to “end Peronism.” Not all members of the alliance Macri forged to become president in 2015 have supported him, but for many others, Massa also represents a red line.
A politician with a 30-year career, Massa was neoliberal in the 1990s, a Kirchnerist with Néstor Kirchner after the 2001 crisis, and both an ally and enemy of Macri and former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. In Argentina he is usually called “Pancake” because of the turns he has taken in his career, but he has used this resource to his advantage. Massa appears to have received more public support from foreign leaders than from Argentine center-right politicians, but the Peronist has said he will call on everyone to govern if he becomes president.