The wave that propels the ultraliberal populist Javier Milei towards the Presidency of Argentina was joined by an unexpected surfer, former president Mauricio Macri. Seduced by the ideas of the leader of La Libertad Avanza (LLA), the politician who governed the country between 2015 and 2019 shows at times more enthusiasm for Milei than for his own candidate, Patricia Bullrich. And this enthusiasm is mutual, because Milei has already announced that he will designate the former president as a “super ambassador” if he wins the elections on October 22.

“If I am president, Macri would have a prominent role as a representative of Argentina. He would be a figure above… a representative of the country, I don’t know how to define himself, the figure would have to be created, he is someone who can open markets,” he said Milei in radio statements this Saturday. It was the return to some statements in which the former president publicly sponsored a man who is proposing the dollarization of the Argentine economy, demolishing the Central Bank, going back with the abortion law and cutting relations with countries like China and Brazil for “communists” .

“This project has the support of the Steve Bannons who are around the world, have a lot of money to pay for campaigns and are a chapter of an international whose flagship project is dollarization,” said analyst Ignacio Zuleta in Clarín.

Neither Vox nor Giorgia Meloni went as far in their proposals as Milei. It is thus understood that the libertarian and ultra-liberal wants to take advantage of Macri, who has very good relations with many world-class leaders, to moderate his image and make it palatable to Washington and Brussels, especially if he settles in the House on December 10. Pink.

Diana Mondino, the economist that Milei chose as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the event of being president, relativized the veto to the “communists”. But she will take her precautions and send a message to China: “I am going to be careful what I sign with you, you are an autocratic country.”

Milei won the presidential primaries on Sunday, August 13, with 30% of the votes against 28.7% for Juntos por el Cambio (JxC), the social-liberal coalition in which Bullrich prevailed. The Peronist Sergio Massa was third, with 27.7%.

What is social-liberal is, however, in question. The liberal wave that many Argentines have joined after two decades of Kirchnerist statism excites Macri, who ignores his social democratic partners from the Radical Civic Union (UCR) and the Civic Coalition (CC), deeply uncomfortable and alarmed by the euphoria. which Milei awakens in the former president.

“Two thirds of Argentines on Sunday embraced healthier ideas than those of Kirchnerism,” Macri said this week during a colloquium in Montevideo. “I dreamed this end of populism several times. I know that Argentines can aspire to live better and have an important role in geopolitics. This is a very hard learning experience, but it has come and people clearly already know what they do not want, for that Peronism is third”.

Macri, a 64-year-old millionaire who will be in Morocco these days playing a bridge tournament, believes, according to Zuleta, that Milei “should not be harassed” because he represents “a naive change”, unlike “change with experience Bullrich’s. But the euphoria is playing tricks on him. Annoyed by Macri’s approach to Milei, the CC leader, Elisa Carrió, resigned this weekend from her candidacy for the Parlasur regional Parliament. A symbolic and powerful gesture at the same time: she removes her name from the electoral ballots.

The former president seems to have taken note that he went too far in his enthusiasm. “There is no possibility that Mauricio accepts that proposal or that he supports Mile,” the former president’s office told EL MUNDO regarding the “super ambassador” proposal.

“What Milei is proposing is not serious, because Macri is the founder of a space that is going to fight for the Presidency with the candidate who won the primaries (internally), Patricia Bullrich. It is one thing to congratulate, another very different is to support his candidacy. Which is not going to happen. Our candidate is Patricia Bullrich,” the spokesperson emphasized.

In the midst of the confusion generated by Macri, Bullrich tries to sneak his message. No success: the public conversation is monopolized by Milei.