11/18/2023 – 18:08
Amidst a scenario of economic degradation, the 2nd round dispute features two opposing personalities and projects: continuity of the Peronist “chameleon” Sergio Massa and a radical rupture of the “Argentine Bolsonaro” Javier Milei. Argentina’s voters return to the polls this Sunday ( 19/11) for the second round of the presidential elections. In the dispute are the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa (centrist Peronist), and the outsider Javier Milei (ultraliberal populist), two opposing personalities who represent two completely different models for the future of the country, which is currently going through (more) a deep economic crisis, marked by galloping inflation, currency devaluation and dramatic increase in poverty.
The first model, proposed by Massa, represents a certain continuity, both politically and in some aspects of the economy, although the candidate is identified more with the center of Peronism, and not with the left of the movement, represented by current president Alberto Fernández and the vice Cristina Kirchner. Massa also defends the maintenance of the wide network of social subsidies in place in the country, where 40% of the population is affected by poverty.
The second model, defended by Milei, encompasses a drastic rupture in the punished Argentine economy, promoting total dollarization, the extinction of the Central Bank and a dramatic cut in state spending, including the subsidy network, whose high costs are pointed out as one of the causes of galloping inflation in the country.
The latest polls indicate that the result of the election should be tight between the two candidates, with several surveys indicating a technical tie or a small advantage for Milei.
Sergio Massa: the ambitious Peronist chameleon
The candidate with the most votes in the first round, Massa, from the União pela Pátria (UP) coalition, is the main name of Peronism in this election, being a more central figure in the movement. Started by Juan Domingo Perón in the 1940s, Peronism has been one of the main political movements or forms of political organization in the country for decades, and has been described as a “Frankenstein” for encompassing extremely different currents, being dominated by both leftists in the 2000s and by neoliberals in the 1990s.
The 51-year-old Massa’s own political career is as full of twists and turns as Peronism. But one characteristic is constant: a strong political ambition.
Initially, this son of Italian immigrants was affiliated with conservative Peronist political groups during the Carlos Menem era (1989-1999). Afterwards, he joined the group of centrist Eduardo Duhalde (2002-2003) and finally the Kirchner couple (2003-2015), two populists further to the left of Peronism.
Former mayor of Tigre, in greater Buenos Aires, Massa became Cristina Kirchner’s chief of staff. However, he later broke with the policy in the early 2010s, publicly denouncing it and forming a rival political group. In a telephone conversation intercepted by the courts in 2017, Cristina referred to Massa in unflattering terms. “This son of a bitch… needs to be caught,” she said at the time.
In 2015, Massa ran for president of Argentina, with Mauricio Macri and a candidate supported by Cristina as opponents. He finished third in the dispute, with 21%. As a deputy, he presided over the Argentine Chamber between 2019 and 2022.
In 2019, he sealed a reconciliation with Kirchnerism, in the best style of Peronist pragmatism. But, despite being the candidate supported by the Kirchnerist left-wing current in the 2023 election, Massa remains an outsider in this nest.
In 2022, with the economy heading towards the abyss, then deputy Massa was called upon by current president Alberto Fernández to take over the Economy portfolio at a turbulent time, replacing Silvina Batakis, who was more directly linked to Cristina Kirchner, current vice-president of the country. Fernández also merged two other ministries, whose areas also came to be headed by Massa.
With Fernández giving up running for re-election, Massa launched himself as a pre-candidate for the country’s presidency in the primaries of União Pela Pátria, the main group of Peronists in Argentina. He secured his candidacy by defeating Juan Grabois, from the Peronist left.
During the campaign, he appeared a few times alongside Cristina Kirchner, who remained discreet throughout the electoral period, after suffering a conviction for corruption in 2022. Unpopular and with no competitive surviving names, Kirchner and Fernández’s Peronism ended up having to swallow the I dislike Massa’s candidacy.
In the final stretch of the first round, Massa, despite having his image associated with the unpopular Fernández, reacted in the electoral polls, managing not only to reach the second round but also finishing in the lead in the first round, with 36.8%, contradicting almost all polls. . Still, this was Peronism’s worst presidential vote in four decades.
In the second round, the burden of the economy in shambles still weighs against him, despite the most recent deterioration having already begun before his tenure as head of the ministry. Massa has argued that this is a time of transition, and that recently adopted measures will still bear fruit. “The worst is over, the best is yet to come,” he said in the final stretch of the first round campaign.
The fact that an Economy Minister from a country punished by 142% annual inflation turned out to be a competitive candidate did not fail to cause astonishment in the international press.
“His resistance is remarkable: he is the candidate for the highest inflation in the last 30 years, the devaluation the day after the elections and much more. Since arriving at the Ministry of Economy he has worsened all the problems and has hardly a single positive indicator in his administration, but he wanted to be a candidate for president and he succeeded. He arrived with disastrous management, improvising, but here he is,” journalist Diego Genoud, author of a biography of Sergio Massa, said this week to the newspaper La Nación.
Javier Milei: the “Argentine Bolsonaro” as a symptom
A phenomenon of these elections, Milei, from the personalist party coalition A Liberdade Avança, is an economist with little political experience, who uses an anti-system discourse and is a supporter of conspiracy theories. In the first round, he received around 30% of the votes.
At 53 years old, he was regularly compared during the campaign to the American Donald Trump and the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro, ultra-right politicians who turned the political world upside down in their countries.
Milei actually has points in common with Trump and Bolsonaro. Since she emerged on the political scene, she has stood out for using aggressive and provocative rhetoric against the traditional political class, whom she blames for the country’s economic ruin, trying to present herself as an outsider.
Former musician in a rock band, former football player in his youth, economist by training and, like Massa, member of a family of Italian origin, Milei began to gain traction in 2015, as a television commentator and defender of principles “libertarians”.
The premiere took place on a channel controlled by Argentine billionaire of Armenian origin Eduardo Eurnekian, owner of the media and airports conglomerate Corporación América, for which Milei worked for more than a decade.
In 2021, Milei was elected for the first time as a deputy. He was not very active in the Chamber – he did not propose projects or participate in committees –, using the position as a platform to launch himself into the presidency of Argentina.
The tactic paid off, and Milei became one of the most talked about topics of the election. His rise in the polls has also caused concern in neighboring countries such as Brazil, and is due in part to Argentina’s younger electorate, who have been attracted to his anti-system agenda and who are fed up with decades of mismanagement. His campaign appearances were marked by theatrical gestures, such as wielding a chainsaw and chanting insults against opponents. In the August primaries, he was the candidate with the most votes.
But, in the first presidential round, he finished almost seven points behind Sergio Massa. Second place disappointed some supporters, but the result was still a divisive step in Argentine politics, marking the arrival of a relatively new name in politics to the second presidential round. Milei’s most radical right-wing brand still managed to displace the country’s traditional conservatives, linked to former president Mauricio Macri, who in the first round were represented by Patricia Bullrich, who came third after leading a campaign essentially focused on combating crime. .
“He [Milei] he is not a leader, he is a symptom” of Argentine society, analyzed former Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo. “He is a great communicator who served as a channel for all those dissatisfied with democracy, politics and the economy”, summarized Juan Luis González, author of a critical biography of Milei, called El Loco (The Madman), to the newspaper La Nation.
Milei defends the possession of firearms, is against abortion and sexual education in schools and considers climate change “a hoax”. He also associated with apologists for the country’s last dictatorship. His running mate is Victoria Villarruel, who has a history of questioning the bloody crimes committed by the military. More recently, like Trump and Bolsonaro, he also began to denounce without evidence that the election runs the risk of being “rigged”.
But in other aspects Milei is exotic even by the standards of the global ultra-right. According to biographer González, Milei takes political “advice” from the spirit of one of her dead dogs, through a medium, in addition to having ordered clones of the animal. In August, after finishing the primaries in first place, she dedicated the result to “four-legged children”.
“We are talking about a person who makes decisions based on a cabinet made up of cloned dogs, who considers himself chosen by God, who claims to dialogue with God and see God. His instability is really worrying,” biographer González told La Nación.
Milei has also argued that Argentines should be allowed to sell their organs and wants the Central Bank of Argentina and several ministries to be abolished. After the primaries, he called the idea of social justice an “aberration.”
His main proposal is to adopt an aggressive dollarization regime, effectively extinguishing the Argentine peso and adopting the American currency in the country. And leaving the State tiny. Ideologically, he defines himself as “libertarian” and “anarcho-capitalist”.
But Milei’s self-proclaimed libertarianism is pointed out by critics as a mere cover to hide an extreme right-wing nature. Shortly before the first round, Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro even sent a video message in support of the Argentine. “We cannot continue with the left. It’s an appeal that I make to all Argentines: let’s change, and change for real, with Milei”, said Bolsonaro in the message.
Even so, during the campaign, Milei became the main recipient of protest or opposition votes against the current government. In the second round, she received the support of former president Macri and the defeated candidate Bullrich.
Much of the political debate in the Argentine campaign was also guided by Milei’s radical ideas, leaving little space for proposals from other candidates.
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