Javier Milei feels, after 10 months in office, the weight of his adjustment policy. It has fallen more than ten points since May, when its positive image reached 54%. He had lowered inflation from 8.8% to 4.2% monthly and the success of his strategy offset the cost of the cuts he applied to eliminate the deficit. But since then he has not stopped falling in the polls. He still has decent figures, around 40% of positive image, but Milei is not just any politician. He is in a clear minority in Congress, he does not have a similar governor and his party, La Libertad Avanza, is under construction. The far-right is a leader without a political structure who needs popular support like no other Argentine president since the return to democracy in 1983. And he has entered what analysts call “the stage of disenchantment.”
It may still be too early to know what it means for the president to gradually lose popular support. But there are obvious warning signs. “It is not a terminal situation, but disenchantment and the decline in approval are beginning to become noticeable,” says consultant Analía del Franco. “It is logical that there was a drop, because ten months have passed. Milei’s problem is that nothing is changing in the square meter of people, not to mention that it is worse. Another issue also appears: the feeling that the president does not give answers to what people are asking of him. And some issues about his style that are starting to bother him more. His style of insults always bothered me, even to his own, but if you also don’t give me money and you are rude, the situation gets complicated,” he warns.
The list of expletives with which the president harangues his troops is long. Last week, during the national launch of his party, he gave a long speech before some 5,000 followers in Parque Lezama, the same place where he had started the campaign that ultimately led him to the presidency. He called journalists, politicians, trade unionists and businessmen “rotten caste”, “miserable rats”, “dirty asses”, “envelopes”, “fiscal degenerates”, “filthy lefties”, “criminals” and “traitors”. Pablo Touzón, director of the consulting firm Escenarios, warns of the danger of “routinization of some of Milei’s attitudes, which lose effectiveness.” “He has demonstrated tactical ability, but not so much in public discourse. It is a weakness to depend exclusively on social humor, especially because in Milei it is not clear which sector of society would bank on it” in the event of a worsening of the political and economic situation, says Touzón.
Some milestones of the far-right administration have fueled the disenchantment that Del Franco speaks of. The veto, at the beginning of September, of a law that guaranteed an increase in retirees’ salaries was a blow to the heart of the “anti-caste” narrative with which Milei came to the Government. Last week, the president vetoed another law, this time financing public universities, after a demonstration by professors and students that brought together 300,000 people in Buenos Aires alone. In both cases he used the same argument: not to give in to the deputies and senators who put his spending control policy at risk. Society is beginning to perceive that the weight of adjustment does not fall only on politics, as Milei had promised during the campaign. “If the drop in popularity deepens, it will be worrying for Milei,” warns Touzón. “Since his agenda does not include corporate or political agreements, what keeps him afloat is society. This implies a constant dialogue with society and very high popularity figures, above 30%. That is a thermometer that especially affects Milei.”
Does Milei have reason to fear for the fate of his management? For now, not too many, analysts say. The president operates in a political system that has exploded after the failure of the Peronist government of Alberto Fernández and there are no names that overshadow him. “While it is true that Milei depends on good popularity ratings, more than other presidents, it is also true that the opposition was not as diluted as it is at this moment for a long time,” says Mariel Fornoni, managing partner of Management & Fit. . “People who don’t love Mieli also don’t want anything that was already there to return. In that sense, nothing new appears nor is there space for it to do so, because we do not even know what profile that new thing would have to have. A good manager? A moderate? Today, no one sees an option that is superior or that has the muscle that would be needed to face Milei,” says Fornoni.
In this scenario of political decomposition, Milei’s decline in popularity raises alarm bells but is not the end of the world. Touzón highlights that “the tremendous adjustment” that the president applied relativizes the severity of the impact of the poll results. “There is a logical end to the honeymoon after ten months and Milei’s easy stage ends. But all its allies and rivals also have negative image differentials. As expected, the light did not go out for Milei,” says Touzón. And it stands out that on the podium of the three leaders with the best image is the vice president of Milei, Victoria Villarruel, and her Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich. “There is resistance to their ideological agenda, because Milei does not go down and, for example, Cristina Kirchner goes up.”
Analía del Franco agrees that the electorate most loyal to the president, the one represented by young men from popular sectors, is not “so attached” to the president, but, she insists, “if they don’t like Milei, they don’t like anyone.” “Not even [el expresidente Mauricio] Macri is an option,” adds Mariel Fornoni. “The Pro [el partido de Macri] is fractured and the Radical Civic Union [UCR] also. The governors and deputies each go their own way and in Peronism Cristina Kirchner is faced with [el gobernador de la provincia de Buenos Aires, Axel] Kicillof. In La Cámpora, the youth movement of Kirchnerism, they are already big and no one wants them,” summarizes Fornoni. Milei is fishing, for now, for popularity amidst the discredit of his rivals.
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