Javier Milei, 53, shocked the world and became president of Argentina, winning over 56% of the vote in the election. Milei’s rise has been the most remarkable of any President in any major democracy. He only began his political career four years ago, going from a controversial TV personality to leading ‘Liberty Advances’ - a Libertarian party, and being elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 2021. A mere two years later, he became the President, riding a wave of populism to the ‘Casa Rosada’.Â
Milei - a lifelong firebrand
Javier Milei was born into a humble family, and he has had a tumultuous relationship with his parents; whom he is no longer in contact with. Milei gained the nickname ‘El Loco’ (the crazy one) when he was at school, owing to his outbursts and way of arguing, and the nickname has stuck with him ever since. He was pursuing a career as a goalkeeper until the 1989 hyperinflation hit Argentina, which made him change paths. He decided to pursue economics - going on to complete two masters in Macroeconomics, and writing several papers on economic growth whilst lecturing around the world. Alongside lecturing, he has worked as a Senior Economist in HSBC Argentina, as well as Corporacion America, before transitioning to a TV personality where gained notoriety for his sharp rebukes of Argentina’s economic policies.Â
Milei’s personal life could certainly be described as eccentric. In his 20’s, he sang in a cover band of the Rolling Stones, and has performed live on Argentinian Television; he also regularly incorporates singing into his political speeches. He has made headlines for being a ‘tantric sex therapist’, boasting of his ability to go for more than three months without ejaculating, and bragging of his regular participation in threesomes. Milei met his current girlfriend Fatima Florez, a TV personality and impersonator in December 2022 on a talk show, , when she was still married to her ex-husband. Other parts of Milei’s personal life that have grabbed headlines have been his relationship with his beloved English mastiff - Conan, who he described as being his ‘son’. When Conan died in 2017, Milei visited a medium to communicate with him, where he had a vision that he Conan first met in a previous life more than 2,000 years ago as a gladiator and lion in the Roman Colosseum, and that the pair did not fight because they were destined to join forces in the future. Since then, he paid $50,000 to have Conan’s DNA cloned, and now has five English mastiffs, one of which he named after Conan, and the other four were named after Libertarian economists. He in fact paid tribute to his dogs after the first round of the Argentinian elections, where he finished first, calling them ‘his best strategists’.Â
Milei’s CampaignÂ
Milei rose to prominence on the back of his controversial statements, and against a backdrop of hyperinflation and economic mismanagement, Milei’s anger struck a chord with the Argentinian public. After receiving 17% of the votes in Argentina’s 2021 legislative elections, Milei had a platform to campaign on. His key proposals included eliminating the central bank, which he blamed for Argentina’s continual inflation, and dollarising the economy, thereby eradicating Argentina’s own currency. These proposals seemed radical and outlandish - both his centre-right opponent Patricia Bullrich and the centre-left de-facto incumbent candidate Sergio Massa highlighted that only countries such as Zimbabwe and Ecuador had tried these tactics, and it would push Argentina into uncharted waters. Other areas of Milei’s campaign included tripling the military’s budget in order to fight organised crime, and eliminating ‘the political cast’ - Argentina’s political establishment to whom he attributed most of the blame.Â
Courtesy El PaÃs
Milei’s populist and radical proposals were extremely unorthodox, and Argentina has no recent history of Libertarianism, or an outsider candidate ever winning an election. As the campaign advanced, however, Milei gained more momentum. He was helped by Argentina’s dramatic economic collapse - with annual inflation rising to 145%, and its peso losing around 80% of its value from April 2022. The deteriorating economic conditions made voters more partial to Milei’s radical proposals, with many Argentines preferring a change to the status quo, even should that change be as radical as what Milei suggests. Further, a slew of corruption scandals occurred in the run up to the election, from Martin Insaurralde using public money to fund a lavish yacht trip in Spain, to Rodolfo Tailhade being accused of spying on opposition politicians and judges. With both Insaurralde and Tailhade belonging to the ruling Peronista coalition, it fomented anger against the political class, and made the electorate more willing to vote for a fringe candidate.Â
Much of the opposition to Milei was driven by an ideological opposition to what he represents. Milei has differed from Bolsonaro and Trump in his stance on nationalism - Milei is not an Argentinian nationalist, unlike most others in the political system of the fiercely patriotic country. There were some more benign comments - such as his opinion that Pele was a better footballer than Maradona, and some more controversial opinions - like his belief that the ‘Kelpers’ of the Falkland Islands should have their rights respected, and his admiration of Margaret Thatcher. Despite this, Milei has also espoused several socially conservative views, speaking in favour organ doning, gun legalisation, and his pledge to hold a referendum on abortion, thus potentially overturning this hard-won right that Argentinians had long fought for. What perhaps drew the most ire was his, and his allies’ comments on Argentina’s last dictatorship. His Vice President, Victoria Villarruel, was born into a military family during the last dictatorship of 1976-83, and has defended their record. Both her and Milei have downplayed the widely accepted number of 30,000 having been murdered by the regime, and have criticised several of the victims’ families as being terrorist sympathisers. Milei also questioned the legitimacy of the elections, claiming in the run-up that there had been several irregularities, planting the seed of doubt that the elections could be stolen, much like Bolsonaro and Trump did. Milei also picked a fight with the Pope, who is Argentinian, calling him a ‘filthy leftist’, and ‘the Devil’s representative on Earth’. All of this came to a head the night before the election; as Milei was watching the opera, the crowd noticed him, and the theatre erupted into chants of ‘Milei, basura, vos sos la dictadura’ (Milei, rubbish, you are the dictator).Â
Despite all of these concerns about Milei, he was still able to win the election quite handily in the end, with a margin of 56-44%. This was a surprise victory - the bookmakers gave a 50% chance to both Milei and Massa of winning, and the margin of victory was shocking to all outside of Milei’s campaign. The crux of Milei’s support came from dissatisfied voters - with 97% of Milei’s voters indicating in polls that they did not approve of the incumbent government, 98% saying that corruption increased, and 99% saying the country is more dangerous. Milei received more votes from men than women - with men being around 15% more likely to vote for him, and he also performed excellently amongst younger voters - with those aged 16-24 over three and a half times more likely to vote for him than Sergio Massa.Â
While Milei’s campaign utilised anger and frustration at Argentina’s economic and political situation, the opposition campaign attempted to use the fear of Milei being elected to convince voters to stick with the status quo. They used the state’s apparatuses as part of their campaign, putting up banners in train stations showing that the price of a ticket would be nearly 20 times more expensive should Milei be elected, and cut state subsidies. They also displayed up many posters in universities, saying that should Milei be elected the universities would be privatised. These strategies landed on deaf ears, and ultimately the Argentinian electorate decided that it would be better to risk the unknown than stick with the status quo, such was its frustration with the state of the economy. This is most evident amongst 16-24-year-olds - the demographic where Milei performed the best, as younger voters have been struck particularly hard by Argentina’s economic malaise. Youth unemployment is around 20%, and with the peso losing its value every day, even renting an apartment is becoming a pipe dream to many young Argentinians, let alone ever owning a property. While Milei did have a loyal base, he only received 30% of the vote in the first round of the election; he was able to add 26% from those who had voted for other candidates because they could not vote for an incumbent government who had led them to the position that they are in.Â
And thus, Javier Milei won the 2023 election handsomely. Whether he will be able to govern successfully is a big question - as his proposals are so radical, they have never been tried before, therefore there are no case studies or comparisons to know how likely it is that they will succeed. The markets certainly approved of Milei’s victory and pro-business stance, with an ETF of Argentinian stocks rising 13% after the election. Milei won by a landslide, but many who voted for him did so out of protest against the incumbent government, rather than a genuine belief in his libertarian principles. Unlike Bolsonaro and Trump, Milei does not have a demographically homogeneous base who will support him through thick and thin, and just as his support has appeared quickly, it can abandon him quickly too, especially if he is unable to fix Argentina’s economic malaise. He will also have the challenge of having to work without a majority in Congress to pass proposals, which could leave him powerless if he is unable to form coalitions, something with which he has little experience. The scale of his victory is important, as it gives him a much more popular mandate to pursue his reforms. Only time will tell whether he will be able to implement them and whether they will be successful.
"his proposals are so radical, they have never been tried before, therefore there are no case studies or comparisons to know how likely it is that they will succeed." is a FALSE statement. Not tried in Argentina but they exist elsewhere in Latin America and are working to one degree or another.