Now that the far-right Javier Milei, 53, is the new president of Argentina, the spotlight is on the other Milei, a woman as powerful as she is discreet who likes to dress in intense colors. The president's little sister is the person he trusts most, his campaign strategist, his stylist, someone he describes as “the Messiah.” Dressed in white, Karina Milei, 50, occupied the place designated for first ladies this Sunday and accompanied her brother to the Casa Rosada aboard the presidential convertible. When Milei greeted the foreign delegations, there she was standing, next to the new president. When Milei spoke from the balcony of the Casa Rosada, she was seen in the shadows.
On the night of the electoral victory, Karina Milei spoke for the first time at a public event. She was in charge of giving way to start the victory speech in a hotel in Buenos Aires: “I want to introduce the president-elect, Javier Milei,” she proclaimed before greeting those present together. She was visibly excited while he kept a serious face. In case there were any doubts, at the most important moment in his life, the first person Milei thanked for his resounding victory was Karina: “Without her, none of this would have been possible.”
Skinny, petite, dyed blonde, Javier calls her Kari; also, The bossthus, in masculine, or first lady.
Many in Argentina consider it the gray brain of the Milei phenomenon. Since she burst into Argentine politics like a whirlwind—for some as an essential breath of fresh air, for others as a serious danger—Milei has left many statements that are difficult to forget. Also some dedicated to Karina. “You know that Moses was a great leader, but he was not good at spreading the word. Then, God sent Orón to spread the word. Well, Kari is Moisés and I am the one who divulges. “I'm just a popularizer,” Milei explained during an interview, excited and in tears. By then Milei was already a deputy. He had one year left before the presidential campaign. Months later, the next president was in a meeting with some rabbis when they talked about the Messiah, whose return to Jerusalem the Jews are waiting for, and the politician intervened: “What happens is that the Messiah is my sister, he has already arrived,” according to what he says. the local press. The rabbis must have been stunned.
Karina Elizabeth Milei is two years younger than her only brother. Little is known about her, what the politician has said, what the allies and detractors of the couple filter, both of them, and little else. She keeps a low profile. She doesn't give interviews, few have heard her voice.
They are children of a marriage formed by a bus driver and a housewife. They grew up in the Villa Devoto neighborhood, in Buenos Aires, and went to the same Catholic school. Both are single, without children. And for years they have been a professional couple.
Karina always had a very close relationship with Javier, who as a child was mistreated by his father in the face of his mother's complicit silence, something for which he has not forgiven them, and who was harassed by his schoolmates. The son did not speak to his parents for years, in public he called them “parents.” But this Sunday night, Mr. and Mrs. Milei were with their children during the counting and at the moment of victory. She never broke off the relationship with her parents. In that loneliness that accompanied President-elect Milei in his childhood and adolescence, Karina was often the only company.
Representative of the La Libertad Avanza party, she signed the document in which the party denounced “a colossal fraud” in the final stretch of the campaign, which the next day the party renounced. But she did not even deign to respond to the summons of the electoral authorities.
“You always have to have someone to report to. In my case I report to my sister,” said Deputy Milei in another interview. She is the person who for years has managed her agenda, her interviews, her conferences in Argentina and abroad. And she is the gatekeeper, the person who controls who has access, and who does not, to the economist who has burst into Argentine politics like an earthquake. A control that she exercises with an iron hand as her older brother advances in his career towards the Presidency.
Graduated in Public Relations, she studied pastry making, is an amateur sculptor and was co-owner of a tire store. When her brother was just an economist who was starting to go on TV as a talk show host, she was in charge of managing his assets.
It was also Karina who convinced Javier to banish the suits and adopt that look of a veteran rocker with leather jackets like the one he wore this Sunday to vote in the presidential elections. The ultra candidate only got out of the car after El Jefe Karina inspected the cordon of private bodyguards organized to protect him to the fenced corridor through which he accessed the electoral college. “He is the most wonderful being in the world,” he said of her in another interview. It remains to be seen what role Karina adopts when her brother's term begins on December 10, if she prefers to continue working behind the scenes, if she jumps into the public sphere as a powerful first lady or, who knows, if she assumes an executive position. in the next Government.
Subscribe here to newsletter from EL PAÍS América and receive all the key information on current events in the region.
#Karina #Milei #sister #strategist #president #Argentina