ARGENTINA ELECTS A LIBERTARIAN PRESIDENT

TO SHOCK PROPOSALS

If he obtains the necessary support in Parliament, he could notably implement a radical economic policy.

He hailed “a historic night for Argentina”.

The ultraliberal Argentine economist Javier Milei, anti-system polemicist and admirer of Donald Trump, was elected president of Argentina on Sunday November 19, 2023.

He won the Argentine presidential election this Monday, with 55.6% of the votes against 44.3% for his opponent, the centrist Sergio Massa.

Repeated political and financial scandals have gradually eroded the confidence of the Argentine people in their elected officials.

In December 2022, former president Cristina Kirchner was sentenced to six years in prison for “fraudulent administration” to the detriment of the State. By distancing himself from politicians, Javier Milei managed to win the hearts of Argentines, sickened by years of corruption and strangled by inflation which amounts to 143% over one year.

The new Argentine leader, who readily defines himself as an "anarcho-capitalist", notably proposes a dollarization of the country's economy and a budgetary "shock treatment". He also rejects human responsibility for global warming and opposes the right to abortion.

Adoption of the dollar to replace the peso

The politician presenting himself as "anti-system" promised shock therapy to Latin America's third largest economy involving significant budget cuts, going so far as to suggest the total elimination of several ministries, including that of Health and Transportation.

An economist by training and elected deputy in 2021, he defined as a key measure of his mandate the dollarization of the Argentine economy, in the face of galloping inflation exceeding 142% over one year, according to the country's Central Bank. He plans to replace the peso, "described as excrement", with the dollar by 2025.

More than 200 economists consider this a “mirage”, anticipating increased fragility in the face of “external shocks” and periods of recession with a high unemployment rate.
At the same time, the new president wants to “energize” the Argentine Central Bank.

A “chainsaw” for public spending

During his presidential campaign, Javier Milei repeatedly brandished a chainsaw, a symbol of the drastic budget cuts to come in the event of victory. The new president intends to reduce public spending by 15% of GDP and put an end to "this aberration called social justice, synonymous with budget deficit".

It plans to reduce public spending by 15% of GDP, privatize the 34 public companies, remove subsidies on gas and electricity, and establish a private tender system for public works.

He also plans to reduce the number of ministries, end the retirements of former presidents, judges, and diplomats, while reducing funds paid to the provinces.

Although Javier Milei tried to allay concerns at the end of the campaign, ensuring that he would not privatize health and education, his anti-feminist positions raise concerns. He proposes to abolish the Ministry of Women, Gender and Diversity declaring in May 2022:

“I will not apologize for having a penis” and denying wage inequalities despite a gap of 27.7% in Argentina.

He opposes the right to abortion, legalized until the 14th week of pregnancy in December 2020, considering abortion to be murder. Javier Milei wants to organize a referendum on the subject: “Obviously, the woman has the rights to her body, but the child is not her body,” he believes.

The new president supports the primacy of individual freedoms on subjects such as the legalization of drugs, the deregulation of the sale of arms, and proposes a "market solution" for organ donation.

However, he defends the primacy of individual freedoms over other subjects, such as the legalization of drugs "as long as it does not involve state aid". The new Argentine president also says he is in favor of deregulating the sale of arms, but also of a "market solution" for organ donation.

A climate skeptic program

On the environmental front, Javier Milei adopts a climate skeptic position, denying global warming due to human activities. He refuses adherence to the UN 2030 agenda and goes so far as to defend the idea of ​​privatizing rivers in Argentina.
“There is, in the history of the Earth, a temperature cycle,” he also declared at the beginning of October during the presidential campaign. The new Argentine president went so far as to defend the idea of ​​privatizing rivers in Argentina

“If water becomes scarce, it stops being worthless and then a trade begins, and you will see how the pollution [from businesses] ends,” he declared in particular during the campaign.

A new president with “tied hands”

But between the initial exercise of charm and the materialization of campaign commitments, the road ahead proves to be particularly demanding. Populist leaders tend to present political proposals often focused on breaking with reality. This approach proves very effective when gaining power, but it takes on a whole new dimension once it is acquired, warns and author of Geopolitics of Latin America.

Although Javier Milei forged his image on the fringes of the corridors of Argentine power, it was nevertheless the support of the right that propelled him to the presidency.

According to the Latin America specialist, Christophe Ventura, research director at Iris, "the real architect of his victory is the right-wing bloc which supported him in the second round to prevent the Peronists, embodied by the candidacy of Sergio Massa, to stay in power."

However, alliances will be essential for him to carry out his program. In Parliament, his party is only the third force, behind the center-left and center-right blocs. For the moment, Javier Milei only has 38 deputies out of the 257 in the Argentine Parliament.

However, to legislate in Argentina, a quorum is required, that is to say half of the deputies plus one. He is very far from it.

The new president will "have his hands tied", because it is "unlikely that he will succeed in forming a majority" in Parliament. Half of the parliamentarians were renewed in the first round of the presidential election and the second half will be renewed during elections in two years.

Javier Milei therefore finds himself obliged to form alliances and, therefore, probably to put water in the wine of his shock campaign declarations.

If Javier Milei manages to obtain the necessary support, he wants to implement shock measures to put an end, as he says, "to Argentine decadence".

The crucial question therefore remains to know to what extent this alliance of circumstance could last.

The Argentines who "barely manage to survive", have chosen the "chainsaw" to the Peronist continuity which has continued to push them into poverty....