“Thanks thanks”. It’s the first time that Karina Milei He gets on stage to speak. No wonder: her brother has just become President of all Argentines. The public, inside and outside the Libertador hotel, is waiting for the economist’s first words as elected president. But – with a wink from the protagonist – she is the first to open the day. “Boss, boss, ole ole ole, boss, boss,” the crowd chants. “Thanks thanks. Good night. I leave you with the president-elect, “Javier Milei”, she says, and lets the eldest of the family get on. Throughout the rest of the day she will be, as always, jealously at her side.
Karina Milei He will not need a position in the next government. Any position would be too small for her, and she doesn’t need it. She spent the 51 years of her life being the most important person to her brother. In large stretches – most – of all those years she was, in fact, the only one who was by her side, not counting the presence – now spectral – of her deceased dog Conan.
To dimension the role of the sister, we must first understand the complex dynamics that La Libertad Avanza has.
The space has a deeply chaotic structure, without assigned places in the ranking or any type of hierarchical order like other parties have. It is zigzagging, and tomorrow’s best friend may be a traitor and vice versa.
In addition, it suffers from another problem: it developed too quickly. For example, The PRO competed and lost an election before winning the vote that made Macri head of Government in 2007. Only two terms later did he make the leap to the national level.
But this case is very different. The growth of LLA It was brutal. She left the first semester of her life, in which she was completely dedicated to the campaign, with the purpose of bringing Milei to the presidency in just two years.
He did this without having any type of internal order, any mechanism for debate or conflict resolution, nor having the intention of designing them. The only thing clear to everyone involved was that those in charge were Javier and Karina, an ultra-verticalist logic that contained a problem: both of them can change their minds on a topic several times in a week. In a space that copied the forms and emotional swings of the leader and his sister, chaos was inevitable.
Karina was the one who filled all the holes. Although her brother is the visible face, although her voice is hardly known, although her whole life she was even further removed from politics than Javier, he is “the boss”, as he calls her, the one who calls the shots in LLA. On some issues it has a total monopoly, topics that in any other party are usually divided between several people. But she doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how to delegate.
One is the management of money. She is the cashier, the one who controls the money that comes in and out, the one who makes decisions about collection and the one who is in charge of collection. Those who treat her say that she is much faster with these procedures than her brother.
“Moses,” as the libertarian refers to her, is also the one who manages the strategy. In fact, the alternatives to follow, the names to support or those to expel, the agenda, the interviews, the events, the aesthetics, and the places to visit come to Javier through his sister. “Talk about that with Kari,” is the most heard phrase within the front, a logic that drives more than one person crazy and that in the long run ends up being a brake on the resolution of any issue. Some are terrified of him. Just look at the face of Fátima Florez, Milei’s new partner, when in yesterday’s last speech she wanted to regain some prominence on stage but was cut short with just one look from Karina.
Everyone who is within the armed group – or those who want to belong – knows that to do anything they first need Karina’s blessing. She is the way to get to Milei, she is the one who convinces him of the steps to take. She’s the only person he really trusts. The dance of figures around the sister is explained by this reality. “If they want to be here, they already know which phone number to call,” Karina often repeats.
Some in the space maintain that there is some type of manipulation in Karina and Javier’s relationship. When she doesn’t get what she wants, she kicks, she argues, she screams and ends up getting into terrible fights with her brother, until she stops talking to him and leaves the place. That way, several days of incommunication can pass, until the deputy ends up giving in to “the boss.”
And it is Milei’s fear of the deepest loneliness, in those moments when her sister stops talking to her, the explanation of the power that Karina has. That is the relationship she has with the next President, the most important person in Freedom Advances.
