Another Argentina begins: liberal, dollarized and still uncertain. She was elected by 55.69 percent of voters. Javier Milei, the candidate of La Libertad Avanza, comfortably beat his opponent from Unión por la Patria, Sergio Massa, who obtained only 44.3 points. For the winner, the pact he closed with Mauricio Macri and Patricia Bullrichwho transferred the votes of Together for Change to him after that force was out of the race for the runoff, and when Milei seemed stagnant in his promotion.
It is arithmetic: the sum of the 30 points that he had obtained in October and the 24 obtained by Bullrich is the one that today makes up the new majority social with which the libertarian leader starts his government. Massa, for his part, failed to repeat his victory in the general elections: he only grew 8 percent between October and the runoff, while the President-elect almost doubled his votes.
In the midst of the euphoria of his bunker, Milei thanked Macri and Bullrich “very especially” for the “selfless act of greatness” to support him. He also mentioned his sister Karina, “without whom none of this would have been possible.” And he said about the economic reforms that are coming: “The situation is critical, the changes we need are drastic. There is no place for gradualism, for lukewarmness.” To those who oppose these changes he warned: “Within the law everything, outside the law nothing.” Finally, he resorted to a biblical quote that became fashionable in his space: “Victory does not depend on the number of soldiers, but on the forces of heaven.” He won with very few, at the head of a force that is only two years old.
The agreement with Macri and Bullrich, invited to the victory bunker, helped Milei in supervising the runoff. Now we have to see how they will coexist in power. It is true that the man from Boca generated a fracture in his own space -Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the radicals and Elisa Carrió did not accompany him in the agreement with La Libertad Avanza-, but he knew how to reinvent himself once again. He considers himself the guarantor of the libertarian government and wants to add his names to Milei’s staff. Guillermo Dietrich, Germán Garavano and Federico Sturzenegger They are just a few.
Milei won widely in almost the entire interior of the country – for example, it swept Juan Schiaretti’s Córdoba – and in the City of Buenos Aires, and only lost in the Province, although by a minimum margin of one point that calls into question how much fervor he dedicated to it. the official apparatus to military Massa’s candidacy. That territory, governed by Axel Kicillof, will now become the refuge of Cristina Kirchner and her people. On the other hand, the blank vote – which was called the radicals and Carrió, among others – reached 1.5 percent and the participation was not good: only 76 percent. Symptoms of what political scientists call democratic dissatisfaction.
The vote for Milei expresses discontent with the status quo and rewards his anti-politics speech and his fundamental promise to eradicate inflation. He had a majority of young voters, he gained support from all social segments, from the countries to the towns, and he won despite the politically incorrect eccentricities of his speech, such as the closure of the Central Bank, the demand for dictatorship, the legalization of the sale of organs, the free carrying of weapons or the end of public education as it is known today. Not even his lackluster performance in the presidential debate a week ago detracted from his votes. Society’s demand for change was stronger than the fear of the unknown.
In the hours before the ballot, the candidate came out to address those fears amplified by the ruling party’s communicators. In a video addressed to undecided voters, he stated that he did not intend to privatize education or health and that he would not allow the free carrying of weapons. He only needed to apologize to the Pope for calling him “the evil one.” Macri also recorded a message in which he explained to his followers that he and his strength would be in charge of containing Milei and providing him with “experience” and “calm,” and that they would not let his most controversial projects pass through Congress. . The appeal of the DNU remains.
Disappointment reigned in Massa’s bunker. The candidate was quick to acknowledge the hard setback before the first official data was made public. “I have contacted Milei to congratulate him and wish him luck,” he said, and thanked “the 11 million Argentines” who voted for him. He also remembered his parents, his wife Malena Galmarini and their children. She said nothing about Cristina Kirchner, the head of the movement, who resisted the idea of her candidacy until the last minute and almost did not appear in the campaign.
¿They left Massa alone in the final stretch of the road? Episodes such as the lack of gasoline – with YPF, a rural savings bank, folded in the middle of that crisis – fuel suspicions about how Cristina and her troops played in the runoff. The vice president, according to this conspiratorial reading, was better off with a victory for Milei than one for the Tigrense, which would have hastened her final retirement. There were other “Herminio drawers” that also harmed the candidate, such as the corruption scandals of the Insaurralde yacht and the “Chocolate” Rigau debit cards, and, in the background, the exchange rate instability and the red numbers of inflation and poverty. . Even so, it is somewhat incredible that the Minister of Economy of an Argentina in permanent crisis has been able to remain competitive at the polls. The reasons are two: that the opposition offer was initially divided and that the rival to face in the second round, Milei, generated obvious concern among part of the electorate.
In the general elections in October, when he came out first, Massa did not let anyone on stage in his bunker with him to celebrate, an attitude that earned him reproaches. He wanted avoid the piantavotes of Kirchnerism. This time he faced the result surrounded by the rest of the troupe, but with CFK thousands of kilometers away, in Santa Cruz. At the end of the campaign, the candidate even privately asked Máximo Kirchner and his people not to be seen in the media. These misfortunes are turning against him now that the future leadership of the space is under discussion, which the Tigrense had assured only if he became President. It is known that Peronism forgives anything except defeat.
The markets were nervously awaiting Milei’s speech to know what to expect. ¿Dollarization will be an immediate reality or will it be implemented in the medium term? And with what reservations? Will the Central Bank continue standing despite what the new President announced in the campaign? How and when will the corrections be in the exchange market? ¿There will be devaluation? What subsidies will be eliminated? All? Who will be the Minister of Economy? What will happen to trade with China and Brazil, whose leaders were described as “communists” by Milei? There are still few answers. They will begin to arrive from December 10.
