Prospects with “Argentina’s Trump”

The election of Javier Milei in Argentina should alarm the left and labour movement across the world. Standing in the populist mould of other strongman leaders, he capitalised on claims to reject the “political caste” and fed on disillusion with the Peronist machine which has dominated Argentina’s politics since 1946 including the ostensibly-leftish variants of 2007-15 and 2019-23.

An avowedly “libertarian”, by which he means freedom for big business and capital, Milei won 56% of the second-round presidential vote, despite the Peronist Sergio Massa, a minister in the outgoing government, doing better in the first round. How much Milei can implement his scattergun programme will depend on the support he can build among Argentina’s existing political class and the response of the labour movement and left.

Liberty Advances, his coalition founded only two years ago, won in 20 of Argentina’s 23 provinces, but none of the governors of the provinces are in his party, and he has a tiny minority of 38 seats in Congress and seven in the Senate.

Milei has said he will take a chainsaw to the state machine and make Argentina a world power in 35 years. He had already won the support of other right-wingers, including 2015-19 president Mauricio Macri, whose Propuesta Republicana party is set to have several Ministers and supply several advisers.

Milei’s campaign promise of converting Argentina to operate in dollars looks to have been dropped almost immediately. (Argentina doesn’t have enough dollars to do it).

Playbook

Milei may not make this easy for himself. He has previously described a prominent representative of the main right-wing coalition, Together for Change, as a “leftist piece of shit”. Milei took a note from the Trump playbook about the conduct of the election, accusing Massa of being prepared to commit massive electoral fraud to win. His running-mate, Victoria Villarruel, has repeatedly minimised the crimes of the previous military dictatorship. Milei said during the election that he would cut public spending from 38% of GDP to 23%, privatise the many industries, and cut the number of ministries from 18 to eight. He has supported an abortion ban, calling for all markets to be accepted including a trade in human organs, and described climate change as a “socialist lie”.

The previous government had overseen inflation rising from 54% in December 2019 to 143% in October 2023. It could go as high as 210% by the end of 2023. In Argentina 40% of the population are defined as poor, meaning unable to afford a bag of basic essentials and another service, like public transport. That is up from 36% under the last Peronist government. Half of all children under 15 live in poverty.

If Milei is to get anywhere close to implementing his plans, it will mean attacking the state pension, transport, and utility subsidies, and that will hit the poorest first.

The far left is stronger in Argentina than in many countries. Myriam Bregman, candidate for president of the largest coalition of Trotskyist (mostly “Morenoite”) parties, the Workers’ Left Front — Unity (FIT-U), won 2.65% of the vote and came in 5th place. Most organisations that made up the FIT-U did not support a vote for Massa in the second round run-off.