It has never been easy to rise in the political world without getting dirty, especially in countries where corruption is endemic and few trust legal institutions. On the way to the top, those who aspire to occupy prominent places in the national order have to rub shoulders with venal subjects who will want everyone to be contaminated with their own vices and who specialize in expelling those reluctant to respect what they call “the codes of politics.”
How many manage to keep their own record clean? Since to survive almost all of them will have had to ignore the misdeeds of others for fear of unleashing an internal one that harms them, it would be surprising if there were many. The awareness that at any moment they too could be targets of tremendous accusations increases the risk that even the most honest will fall into the temptation of collaborating with evildoers or, at least, appeasing them in the hope of saving themselves difficulties. Likewise, the fact that, thanks to computer networks today, virtually anyone will be able to obtain data that would have previously remained hidden means that mistakes that were made decades ago can come to the surface to put an end to a promising career,
Unfortunately for Javier Milei, the links of the former libertarian candidate José Luis Espert with Federico “Fred” Machadoan alleged drug trafficker that the United States hopes to extradite who had provided him with money for years, in addition to lending him armored cars and the use of private planes, came to light just as the midterm election campaign entered its decisive phase. Milei’s efforts to defend Espert, treating him as a victim of a smear campaign based on “hairdressing gossip,” were counterproductive; Among other things, they distracted the attention of the electorate from the role of Kirchnerism in the transformation of suburban areas into liberated territory for sadistic drug traffickers, like those who murdered, after torturing them, three girls, a horrendous crime that raised fears that Argentina was in danger of sharing the fate of countries like Mexico in which such atrocities are routine.
Milei’s willingness to pay a high political price to support Espert can be explained; The economist was one of the few members of La Libertad Avanza who fully shared his ideological convictions. He was not a recent convert to the movement seduced by the popularity of the anarcho-capitalist rocker but a true believer in the libertarian gospel who, well before the emergence of Milei, appeared as a belligerent champion of pure and simple ultraliberalism.
Although for the president ideas matter much more than the personal conduct and the resulting image of those who express them, in politics this is far from the case; Indeed, the prolonged Argentine tragedy is largely due to the fact that large sectors of the electorate have become accustomed to sympathizing with the supporters of schemes that, in the long run, would have terribly negative consequences, assuming that they shared their own scale of values.
In any case, although speaking ill of “the political caste”, that is, the country’s ruling class, without discriminating between its members, helped Milei to achieve the presidency, he refused to understand that, to govern with a minimum of effectiveness, he would need to have the help of a multitude of experienced people who, for better or worse, will have integrated the agglomerate that he had demonized. It was fanciful of him to suppose that it would be easy for him to replace him with a very different one made up of those who celebrated his diatribes and attended his grotesque musical shows.
As it could not be otherwise, his own electoral success made him a magnet for a horde of improvisers determined to take advantage of the opportunity he offered them to ensure a good time. They may have included some very valuable people, but judging by the lists of candidates who deserved the approval of the very powerful presidential sister Karina, they also include adventurers who are not in a position to contribute anything useful to a government that imagines itself destined to remake the country.
Unless Milei manages to recover from the setbacks of recent months, almost all due to his own incompetence and the precariousness of the government that answers to him, to survive in power he will depend on the adherence of other politicians to the constitutional calendar. Fortunately for him, it seems that the majority understands that Argentina is simply not in a position to withstand another major political-economic crisis, so it would be better to tolerate what there is and not risk causing a new catastrophe.
All in all, although Milei is determined to postpone the renewal of his government for a few more weeks while he prays that the scandals that he has been involved in in one way or another do not make the results of the national legislative elections similar to those of the Buenos Aires elections of September 7, he seems to have realized that he has no alternative but to formally ally with the PRO of Mauricio Macri. Thus, it could cause some problems that Diego Santilli, the one selected by Milei to replace Espert as head of the list in the province of Buenos Aires, has distanced himself from the former president. Like so many other politicians, Macri, who will surely play a key role in the Argentine drama in the coming months, tends to value loyalty and has good reason to distrust those who chose to join La Libertad Avanza when it seemed poised to become a hegemonic force.
Such an illusion now belongs to the past. Although Milei dreamed of dominating national politics until the Greek calends, it would seem that he will have to settle for what has already been done, which, of course, is not little. After all, he can boast of having saved the country from the hyperinflationary tsunami that threatened it and of having done more than anyone else to establish the conviction that from now on he would have to live off the resources he managed to generate. Although signs have recently multiplied that society feels tired of the austerity imposed not by Milei’s “cruelty” but by the deficiencies of a less than productive national economy, a larger and more competent government than the current one should be able to create a support base capable of preventing a relapse into the suicidal facileism that has led the country to the situation in which it finds itself.
It was always to be expected that, as time went by, Milei’s “charisma” that allowed her to dominate the political scene would be diluted until, suddenly, the climate changed when her sister was accused of perpetrating acts of corruption to the detriment of the disabled. Although the “honeymoon” enjoyed by Milei and the citizens lasted longer than many predicted, it ended a couple of months ago; He now runs the risk of being abandoned to his fate unless he resigns himself to being the titular leader of a broad coalition in which the despised “republican nerds” would have to take charge of the technical side of management.
Fortunately, it would seem that, in general terms, the course that Milei took almost two years ago has the support not only of the government of his American friend Donald Trump and “the Messi of finance” Scott Bessent, but also of a substantial part of society, which is why it would not be so traumatic for him to try to perform more like a “normal” president than like an enlightened prophet who swears to have the support of “the forces of heaven.”
Although it is no consolation, Milei is far from the only democratically elected leader who has seen a consensus that he believed would last disappear with disconcerting rapidity. The same has happened in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and many other countries. It turns out that, everywhere, the explosive progress of electronic media is accelerating political changes by giving much more power to those dissatisfied with the status quo. Scandalous issues, such as the one carried out here by Espert, which in other times would have developed slowly, today can impact public opinion in a few hours, which disorients governments that are constrained to react immediately but soon find that others have even more information than before or that more episodes have already occurred that they would have to try to handle.
Here, the feeling that everything is in flux is intensified by the unusual frequency of elections. Few weeks go by without the national government having to take an exam in a municipality, as happened in the Federal Capital, a province, be it Corrientes or Buenos Aires, or the country as a whole, which makes it even more difficult than it would be in other circumstances for it to dedicate itself to what logically should be its fundamental work. Although it is impossible to conceive democracy without elections, incessant campaigns make the task even more difficult in the face of a government, like Milei’s, that is trying to reverse a systemic crisis with very deep roots.
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