Javier Milei has swept the Argentine elections this Sunday. He will be president from next December 10 after obtaining 56% of the votes in a second round that pitted him against the Peronist Sergio Massa. These are some keys to his success.
The comeback in the province of Buenos Aires
Javier Milei added 4.7 million votes in the most populated district in Argentina to those he had obtained in the first round on October 22. The province of Buenos Aires was key in Sergio Massa’s victory in the first round. The Peronist governor, Axel Kicillof, won re-election on that occasion. There was a lot of speculation about how many votes that district would contribute to Massa in this second round: there were only 700,000 votes. The 17 point advantage that the Peronist obtained in October was reduced to less than two this Sunday. Milei took most of the votes from Patricia Bullrich, who had come third.
Voting in the province of Córdoba
In the Massa campaign they were clear that the Peronist candidate needed to get at least 30% of the votes in Córdoba, the second electoral district in Argentina after Buenos Aires. He was five points away from that minimum goal. Javier Milei swept Córdoba with 74% of the votes, 1.6 million votes that widened his difference over the Peronist.
Macri’s support
The decision of former liberal president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) to ask for a vote for the extreme right was fundamental for Javier Milei. The candidate’s outbursts of fury and lack of political structure scared the moderate sectors of the electorate, who found in Macri’s support a guarantee of stability. Macri gave Milei the democratic veneer that the ultra lacked, in addition to increasing expectations of governability with the contribution of ministerial cadres and votes in Congress.
The economic crisis
Having as a rival the Minister of an Economy with 140% inflation and 40% poverty has given Milei wings. Argentines are fed up with the recurring crises that devastate Argentina and on Sunday they showed that they are even willing to take a leap into the void. Massa tried by all means to detach himself from his own management, but it was not enough. Milei’s promise that Argentina will once again be “a power”, as in the 19th century, especially seduced the youngest, where the ultra garnered most of their votes.
Regional trend
In 17 of the 18 presidential elections held in Latin America since 2019, the ruling parties lost. The only exception was Paraguay, where the Colorado party retained power. The alternation affected both right-wing and left-wing governments. The most radical changes in trend occurred in Colombia, with Gustavo Petro, and in Chile, with Gabriel Boric.
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