Convinced that he can become president of Argentina this Sunday, Javier Milei closed his electoral campaign in front of 14,000 people on Wednesday night, riding a euphoria that led his mentor to escalate the confrontation with Pope Francis and propose breaking relations. with the Vatican.
“Out of consideration for the Catholic religion, out of respect for that religion, I believe that we should imitate what President (Julio Argentino) Roca did: that is, suspend diplomatic relations with the Vatican while the totalitarian spirit prevails in the head of the Vatican.” said Alberto Benegas Lynch (son), the only one to speak at the event, apart from Milei himself.
The proposal of Benegas Lynch, a liberal veteran whom Milei defines as a “procer”, is in line with the disqualifications of the winner of the August presidential primaries to the Argentine Pope. “What I am going to say next does not compromise Javier Milei’s position, I fully assume what I am going to say,” clarified Benegas Lynch, 83 years old, doctor in Economics and member of three Argentine National Academies.
In his speech, Milei did not refer to the proposal of Benegas Lynch, second cousin of Ernesto “Ché” Guevara, whose full name was Ernesto Guevara Lynch de la Serna, controversial icon of the Cuban revolution that brought the Castros to power in 1959. .
Milei and Jorge Bergoglio, who until 2013 was the archbishop of Buenos Aires, do not know each other, but the rejection of Pope Francis is one of the consistent axes of Milei’s rise in politics. Years ago, a libertarian called the Pope “the evil one.” A few weeks ago, during an interview with the ultra-conservative American journalist Tucker Carlson, he harshly attacked Francis: “The Pope plays politically, he has strong political interference, he has shown great affinity with dictators like Castro and Maduro, he is on the side of bloody dictatorships.” .
The polarization with the first Latin American Pope in history benefits Milei electorally, whose campaign closing act included insults to a good part of the political arc, chants insisting that “the caste is afraid” and videos in which nuclear explosions were observed. and demolitions of buildings as a preview of what he plans to do if he settles in the Casa Rosada on December 10.
The polls, of very little reliability in Argentina, show Milei, leader of La Libertad Avanza (LLA), with a few points advantage over Patricia Bullrich, of the social-liberal coalition Together for Change (JxC), and Sergio Massa, of Peronism, who are fighting for second place. That advantage would not be enough to avoid the November 19 runoff, although in recent days several analysts have warned of the possibility of the appearance of a “black swan”, of an unexpected result.
Milei, who can be defined as an ultra-liberal populist, once again showed his contempt for the democracy recovered in Argentina in 1983. “We have probably spent the desert of 40 years to recover freedom,” he shouted, to the euphoria of his followers. The 40 years that Milei mentions are the ones with the highest level of freedom and democracy in Argentine history, a period that began in 1983 with the radical (social democrat) Raúl Alfonsín after the savage military dictatorship that began in 1976.
The renewed attack on the Pope has its roots in something that happened 139 years ago. In 1884, then-President Roca expelled Apostolic Nuncio Luis Mattera from Argentina after accusing him of interference in the country’s internal affairs. Argentina was in the midst of a debate around Law 1420, which established common, free, compulsory and secular education, one of the pillars on which a country was sustained that would become one of the countries with the largest number of immigrants in the world. In his second term, Roca reestablished relations with the Holy See.
This week, the 86-year-old Pope himself warned his compatriots of the danger of following “a Messiah.” “We were all young people without experience and sometimes boys and girls cling to miracles, to messiahs, to things being resolved in a messianic way. The Messiah is only one who saved us all. The rest are all clowns of messianism” Francisco said during an interview with the official Télam news agency.
“No one can promise the resolution of conflicts, if it is not through crises going upwards. And not only. Let’s think of any type of political crisis, in a country that does not know what to do, in Europe there are several… What is done? Do we look for a messiah to come and save us from outside? No. Let’s look for where the conflict is, let’s grab it and resolve it. Managing conflicts is wisdom. But without conflicts we can’t move forward,” added Francisco, 86 years old.
Milei’s attacks on the Pope led those around the religious leader to assume that he will not travel during Holy Week in 2024 to Uruguay, the south of Brazil and Argentina, his native country, which he has not set foot in since he was elected as representative in 2013. of God on Earth.
However, in the interview with Télam, the Pope himself revived the possibility of that trip: “Do you still have important trips left?” the interviewer asked him. “Well yes, Argentina. I would like to go… Speaking of the furthest away, I have Papua New Guinea left. But someone told me that since I’m going to Argentina, I should stop in (the Argentine city of) Río Gallegos, then Polo South, land in Melbourne and visit New Zealand and Australia. It would be a bit long.”
During the closing ceremony of the campaign, EL MUNDO spoke with Milei voters about tensions with the pope. Alan Sánchez Rival, 17 years old (in Argentina he has voted since he was 16), believes that the tension is not good.
“I think it’s wrong, that I shouldn’t have to say that to anyone, but it seemed good to me that Milei apologized in the second debate with the Pope, who is the best Argentine.”
Milei insists on promising that only he knows how to get out of the chronic economic crisis that Argentina is experiencing: the solution is to bet on liberalism, he says. “In 15 or 20 years we can be like France, like Italy, like Spain. In 30 years, like Germany, in 35, like the United States, and in 40, like Ireland.”
It is not the first time he has said it, although Milei does not say why, on his particular scale, Ireland is the most coveted target.
On the outskirts of the stadium where the event was held, all types of merchandising were sold, from caps to t-shirts, including balloons, umbrellas and other objects, with logos and legends supporting Milei. One of the t-shirts reflected La Libertad Avanza’s position against gender ideology: “Patriarchy is what I have hanging here.”