Argentina’s October presidential election will be played out between the ultra-liberal economist Javier Milei, author of a spectacular breakthrough, a right-wing former security minister, Patricia Bullrich, and the current economy minister Sergio Massa ( center-left), according to the provisional results of the primaries on Sunday.
Javier Milei, 52, who is running as an anti-system against a “political caste”, caused a stir by becoming the candidate with the most individual votes nationally, with more than 32% of the vote, according to official results covering more than 64% of ballots counted.
He is ahead of Patricia Bullrich, 67, who in an indecisive right-wing primary took the advantage over the (center-right) mayor of Buenos Aires Horacio Larreta with more than 27% of the vote; and Sergio Massa, 51, Minister of the Economy, who unsurprisingly won the primary in the government camp, but came in 3rd place overall with 25% of the vote on his name.
During these “PASO” (Open, Simultaneous and Compulsory Primaries), more than 35 million Argentine voters were called upon to preselect both the parties that will be in contention on October 22, – to do this they needed to obtain 1.5 % of votes nationally – and their candidates.
Twenty-two “president vice-president” tickets were in the running, of which only half a dozen should remain after the final vote count.
The outgoing Peronist President Alberto Fernandez, unpopular, is not running again, and his succession looks uncertain, after the successive failures of his administration, before him that of the liberal Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), to restore the 3rd economy of Latin America.
This is locked between double-digit inflation for 12 years (recently increased to 115% over the year), a colossal debt with the IMF, poverty at 40%, and a currency, the peso, which is unscrewing.
Also the PASO 2023, which sometimes serve as a life-size survey prefiguring the presidential election, were scrutinized carefully.
The mobilization, at 69% – and despite the compulsory vote – is far below the primaries of four years ago (76.4%), reflecting the disenchantment of the electorate.
“There is a growing disaffection of the electorate, in a country which had marked political identities”, diagnoses Juan Negri, political scientist from the Torcuato di Tella University. “Milei is a reflection of this disenchantment among many voters who no longer believe in parties.”
Facundo Cardozo, a 27-year-old salesman near a Porteno polling station in Barrio Norte, illustrated on Sunday the appeal of a radical Milei-type solution, “to the point where things are”. “We have to break what has been done, then put the pieces back together and start all over again,” he told AFP.
Milei, a media economist for a few years, had burst onto the political scene in the partial legislative elections of 2021, his party “Libertad Avanza” (Freedom advances) becoming the third force in Buenos Aires (17.3%). But a strong doubt remained on its penetration across the country.
His score, which exceeds poll forecasts, places him de facto as a serious candidate for the presidency, or at least for a possible second round on November 19.
Among other things, he wants to abolish the Central Bank in the long term, ban abortion (legalized in 2020), liberalize the sale of weapons, and plans to open a market for the sale of organs…
But above all, in an incendiary and sometimes insulting language, he wants to free “with kicks in the ass” the “political caste” which according to him “parasite” Argentina for 30 years.
Between privatization and deregulation, his radical proposals, like a “chainsaw plan” in public services, have often shocked. But they have also shaken up the political debate, raising almost taboo themes, such as an assumed dollarization of the Argentine economy.
He promised to make Argentina a “power” again, as when it was the “promised land” of European emigration at the beginning of the 20th century. A theme of “found greatness” which is reminiscent of Donald Trump, with whom he claimed an affinity.
At Libertad Avanza’s campaign headquarters, the results were received with euphoria, in a largely young audience, to the sound of rock music.
“People are tired of being victims, hostages of the caste, of accepting things as they are,” Lilia Lemoine, a legislative candidate for Milei’s party, told AFP. “They support Milei because he represents hope for real change.”
08/14/2023 05:21:00 – Buenos Aires (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
