The unexpected victory in Sunday’s elections, and especially the setback in the Province, gave new life to the President. Not only air, but also something very similar to impunity. Votes empower and the Milei that was seen in the bunker of the libertarian celebrations is an example of that. Before he spoke, for example, he brought his sister Karina on stage – he rubbed it in the faces of all his critics, you could say – and allowed her to sign the victory even though she had just starred in a major scandal with 3 percent bribes from the National Disability Agency (Andis). And after vindicating the general secretary, he appeared singing a rock song and thus mocking the many detractors who had been scandalized by his musical show at the Movistar Arena just days before the elections. Even the journalists closest to the president made disapproving faces in the middle of that recital and called it inopportune, but now, in the triumphal bunker, Milei continued singing and covering everyone’s mouths. The polls, he felt, had given him a blank check.
The omnipotence that comes with victory not only allowed these small gestures, but is also evident in what will be the Government’s immediate agenda: moving forward with labor, pension and tax reforms, and authorizing new tariffs in the energy sector. More votes translate, thus, into more chainsaws. The endless adjustment that took almost two years was confirmed in the dark room.
The electoral result even achieved a brand new exchange rate balance that not even the bailout of the United States Treasury had achieved: suddenly, the markets stopped putting pressure on the dollar and the value of the greenback fell when everyone maintained that it should rise. Although it remains to be seen if this miracle lasts.
Even the promised changes in the composition of the Cabinet will have to wait until later because the President understands that no one is rushing him anymore. December is the month in which it would fill the vacancies left by Patricia Bullrich and Luis Petri, who will assume their seats in Congress, and that of Manuel Adorni, who will disembark in the Buenos Aires Legislature. Even someone who was considered to have resigned, like Mariano Cúneo Libarona, is now clinging to his position. Before Sunday, a journalist asked him if he would really leave and the Minister of Justice responded enigmatically, off the record: “Let’s see what happens with the elections.” Is there Cúneo for a while?
A post-election novelty is that the President seems to have softened his ways of communicating with the rest of politics and society. You can see the effort to stop insulting everyone, although the truth is that words are one thing and gestures another. Because the Milei who momentarily put aside the disqualifications is the same one who in parallel insists on rubbing his sister in the face, continuing to sing like a rockstar or announcing new reforms and more chainsaws. This is not a leader with whom you can reason, but rather someone who believes that he must go for everything. And that will try.
