If there were an international competition to see which country has the most unusual leader, Argentina would win by a landslide. Their great rivals in this category, the United States and North Korea, have presidents whose behavior is often disconcerting, but compared to Javier Milei, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un are paragons of normality.
For a long time, Milei’s willingness to flout all the rules and display his many eccentricities helped him entrench himself in power while carrying out a ruthless adjustment, but it seems those halcyon days are coming to an end. While there is no doubt that the economic hardships suffered by so many are depriving him of support, they have less impact on his ratings than his astonishingly fierce way of reacting to any criticism and, of course, the rumors of corruption within the government that continue to proliferate. Nor does the internal conflict between the faction headed by Karina and the official strategist Santiago Caputo help him.
It no longer serves Milei as before to appear as the chainsaw madman who was determined to dismember a parasitic political “caste” whose voracity had impoverished millions of families. After using his favorite tool to trim some notorious excrescences and slim down the obese public sector, he is using it to attack those who have had nothing to do with the country’s almost century-long decline. Instead of treating the “nerdy Republicans” and classical liberals of the decimated middle class as allies in the fight it has undertaken against a socioeconomic and political order programmed to fail, it insists on placing them in the enemy camp. It should not surprise you, then, that many are taking positions that are clearly opposed to his management.
However, there are indications that, thanks largely to Milei’s vehement preaching, but also to the enormous damage caused by his immediate predecessors in power, “the common sense of Argentines” has been radically modified as the bulk of the citizenry has come to the conclusion that it would be calamitous to once again support politicians committed to variants of inflationary voluntarism who for decades managed to ingratiate themselves with the electorate by telling them about their love for the humble and their own generosity. It will be for this reason, and because he understood that the specter of the return of Kirchnerism scared international investors interested in trying their luck in Argentina, that the Minister of Economy Luis Caputo chose to assure us that “the Kuka risk is zero.”
However, even if there are signs that a substantial proportion of the country’s population is willing to embrace the macroeconomic part of the Milei package, only a shrinking minority finds the rest of the content attractive. Stoically enduring an adjustment because it is assumed to be inevitable and necessary is one thing, resigning yourself to the President of the Nation speaking like a slum ruffian who rudely insults all those who, for whatever reasons, find themselves incorporated into his already very long list of mortal enemies, is quite another.
As it could not be otherwise, Milei’s extreme irascibility, which almost every day gives the impression of being about to explode, causes doubts regarding her mental balance. Would he be capable of one day abandoning the presidency under the pretext that the country had disappointed him? Also worrying is his emotional dependence on his sister Karina, who has been able to take advantage of it by managing to enjoy the fervent support of a small group of politicians, officials and others despite having a public image that is extremely negative. Although nepotism is traditional both here and in many other countries and it is routine for a president to justify the distribution of important positions among members of his own family and lifelong friends, asserting that he needs to surround himself with people he can trust, many condemn him for believing that he facilitates corruption.
Unfortunately for the Chief of Staff, Miguel Adorni, he has become the ultimate symbol of corruption in the libertarian world. They accuse him of living like a millionaire based on income that is strikingly higher than declared, which, naturally, has given rise to all kinds of suspicions. For weeks, specialized journalists have been closely reviewing the expenses of Adorni and his wife, the loans they have received from alleged friends and countless other details that they would have preferred to keep hidden. The amounts at stake may be ridiculous compared to those stolen from the public treasury by members of the Kirchnerist cartel, but judging by the attention that the media is paying to Adorni’s lifestyle, many have become convinced that he is among the most venal characters in national history.
Even so, Milei refuses to abandon him to the wolves who are hunting him, and Adorni himself refuses to understand that, no matter how unfair he believes the situation he finds himself in, it would be better for everyone if he put an end to his political career. At this point, any outcome of the drama in which he is involved would be bad for the government. If for some reason Justice chooses to acquit him, almost everyone would attribute it to political pressure. And if he rules that he did violate the law and therefore deserves to pay a large fine or go to jail, a president who claims to be committed to ethics would be seriously damaged by not ousting him before the case took on its current dimensions.
Needless to say, the fact that the notable reduction in the level of support for the libertarian government that has been registered in recent weeks has been due not only to the economic problems that almost everyone faces but also to the behavior of the president, is of great concern to those convinced that there is no viable alternative to the “course” he has charted. What they want is to save Milei’s mileism which, in their opinion, has become the worst enemy of the creed he forged. They dream of a government that is as determined as the current one to carry out the structural reforms that, in the opinion of virtually all respected economists, will be essential for Argentina to prosper in the hyper-competitive and very tumultuous world of the coming years, but that has freed itself from the burden of an irrationally angry leader accompanied by a group of bizarre individuals.
It is not that all officials of the libertarian government share the less recommendable characteristics of their boss, since there are some, such as the Minister of Deregulation and Transformation of the State, Federico Sturzenegger and the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello, who by common agreement would be in a position to perform very well in a team headed by a less reprehensible politician than Milei, but because La Libertad Avanza is a group that was formed overnight to take advantage of the unforeseen popularity of an outsider, It is not surprising at all that the Mileist troop includes many very strange characters.
For some, what happened recently in Hungary, where the “far-right” Prime Minister Víctor Orbán lost an election by knockout after 16 years in power, could be repeated here, since the winner, Peter Magyar, is not a leftist or centrist but a conservative who, despite having a profile that in traditional terms is as “right-wing” as that of the man he defeated, is much more respectful of the prevailing norms in Europe. In other words, Milei’s eventual electoral fall would not have to mean the return of Kirchnerist populism since it could mean his replacement by someone who is less irritating but who still shares the same economic ideology.
Where would this hypothetical mileist come from, more civilized than the founder of the movement that aspires to make Argentina an economic power? Much will depend on the evolution of the thinking of the different political groups. If the bulk of Peronists become convinced that the supporters of fiscal rectitude and commercial openness have already won “the cultural battle” and that it would be useless to refuse to recognize it, it would not be inconceivable that it would emerge from their ranks; After all, the majority supported Carlos Menem in his electorally profitable “neoliberal” phase.
However, for now at least, those most attracted to the idea that what the country needs is mileism without Milei are the macristas; Although its leader, former president Mauricio Macri, hesitates to declare himself willing to run, perhaps because he understands that in a certain way he belongs to a past that the majority wants to leave behind, in the residual Pro there are some who could be tempted. In that case, the chosen one would have the support of his important sector of the national business community that, despite the current difficulties it faces, believes that, although it would be a historic mistake to waste what has been done by the Milei government as of December 10, 2023, they have come to the conclusion that it would be better if, in the same month of 2027, he were replaced by someone less inclined to fight with everyone.
