On 19 November far-right economist Javier Milei was elected president of Argentina with 55.7% vote in a second round of voting. This was the largest such victory since Argentina’s return to democracy in 1983. He defeated Peronist Sergio Massa who had won the first round on 22 October, with 36% against Milei’s 30%, but without enough votes for outright victory.
Often compared to Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, Milei is a self-defined anarcho-capitalist and climate change denier whose popularity has rapidly grown in the last few years due to his controversial opinions, eccentric behaviour and chainsaw-wielding at political rallies. Beginning his public appearances as a TV pundit, Milei gained popularity with his extreme policies and pledges, making the chainsaw a symbol of his plans to cut the Argentinian state and social programmes that millions depend on.
Milei ran as the presidential candidate of the La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) party, a conservative political coalition that he co-founded in 2021 to participate in the Argentinian legislative election the same year. La Libertad Avanza (LLA) advocates for a reduction in the size of the Argentinian state and has presented itself as anti-establishment and anti-politics.
Milei’s victory and Argentina’s turn towards right-wing libertarianism take place in the context of a severe economic crisis with over 140% annual inflation and 40% poverty, a crisis often attributed to the mismanagement of former Argentinian president Alberto Fernández, leader of the Peronist coalition Frente de Todos (Everyone’s Front) with Cristina Fernández Kirchner as Vice-President. The Renewal Front, and its coalition partners in the Unión por la Patria (Union for the Homeland) coalition, the successor of Frente de Todos, were rejected at the ballot box.
What Milei calls his ‘Chainsaw Plan’, consisting of slashing public spending, scrapping half the government’s ministries, selling state-owned companies and eliminating the central bank, is part of the ‘drastic’ changes he claims the country needs to end the so-called tyranny of the state and taxation, which he refers to as theft. Among the state institutions that Milei has pledged to abolish are the Ministries of Health, Education, Science and Technology, Transportation, Public Works, Culture and Women, Gender and Diversity, leaving only eight of the 18 government ministries. Milei has denied the existence of a wage gap between men and women, has labelled abortion as murder, and rejected the national consensus over the 30,000 murdered during the last dictatorship.
But one of his main policies is dollarisation. Milei promised to end Argentina’s monetary sovereignty by eliminating the central bank, which he blames for contributing to Argentina’s triple-digit inflation, and abandoning the peso to adopt the US dollar as the official currency. In an attempt to strengthen Argentina’s ties with the US, Milei also plans on breaking off diplomatic relations with the country’s largest trading partners, China and Brazil, which are responsible for 35% of Argentina’s trade. His prospective foreign minister Diana Mondino announced that Argentina would suspend its accession to BRICS. In a phone call after his election, Milei told Biden that he would cool relations with China and align with the US and Israel. Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro declared that ‘In Argentina, the neo-Nazi extreme right won’. The usual diplomatic niceties were followed by other states.
A free market fundamentalist, Milei believes privatisation is the solution to most of society’s problems, promoting efficiency and competition. ‘Everything which can be in private sector hands, will be in private sector hands’, he said in an interview on 22 November. But he takes it further. During his campaign, he proposed plans to open the market in the sale of human organs to ‘solve the problem’ of lack of organ donors, create a ‘free market of adoptions’ in line with his plans to outlaw abortion – which has only been legal in Argentina since 2021 – and reduce gun restrictions. However, he backed away from some of these positions as the election drew close.
His campaign was backed by those most disillusioned with the state of the country, those who have lost faith in Peronist leaders who, having bowed to the IMF despite promising the opposite, proved unable to seriously address Argentina’s debt crisis in the interests of the working class. Among Milei’s supporters are also the younger voters, particularly men, who have grown up in a state of semi-permanent economic crisis and are attracted to a radical discourse that addresses their lack of expectations and constant frustration. Milei reached these generations with his social media campaign which included TikTok videos and memes.
As Milei prepares for the transition of power, former far-right president of Brazil Bolsonaro promised him he would attend his assumption of office on 10 December, and his victory has been celebrated on social media by the likes of Elon Musk and his admirer Donald Trump.
However, in the Chamber of Deputies the Union for Homeland gained 58 seats in the October general election, compared to Milei’s La Libertad Avanza’s 35. The Together for Change alliance gained 31 seats. In the Senate Milei is outvoted 15 to 7, with 2 floating votes.
This means that Milei has no legislative authority, and will have to turn to whatever executive powers he can claim to make any changes.
Luna Blue
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 297 December 2023/January 2024
