Argentina chose to radically change direction on Sunday. The ultraliberal economist Javier Milei will be the next president of the country, after having largely won the second round of the presidential election, with 55.95% of the votes against 44.04% for his rival, the Minister of the Economy Sergio Massa.
These partial results showing a lead of more than eleven points for Javier Milei were communicated by the general secretariat of the presidency, with more than 86% of the votes counted. A few minutes earlier, centrist Sergio Massa, who came first in the first round on October 22, had conceded defeat, announcing to his supporters at his campaign headquarters in Buenos Aires that Milei “is the president that the majority of Argentines have elected for the next four years. He added that he called Javier Milei “to congratulate him and wish him good luck.”
Pro-Milei want to clean up the head of state
At the same time, euphoria invaded the exterior of Javier Milei’s campaign headquarters, where a few thousand supporters sang and chanted two of the candidate’s favorite slogans: “La caste tiene miedo” (The caste is afraid!) “Long live freedom, carajo!” » (Long live freedom, damn it!). “Let them all go, let not one be left!” », also intoned the pro-Milei.
Brazilian President Lula wished “good luck and success” to the new Argentine government, in a message on X in which he did not mention Javier Milei. “Argentina is a great country that deserves all our respect. Brazil will always be available to work with our Argentine brothers,” he wrote.
More than the result, it is above all the magnitude of the gap which surprises. Pollsters had in recent weeks given a slight advantage to Milei, but many analysts predicted a result that would be decided “down to the vote”, in a tense and undecided election unlike any in the forty years since the return of democracy.
Four out of ten Argentines below the poverty line
In the end, the “outsider” who promised to free the “parasitic political caste”, the Peronist and liberal governments succeeding one another for twenty years, overthrew Argentine politics with a small tidal wave, to the point of being flush with it. -bold Argentinians exhausted by an economy on its knees. Chronic inflation, now at three figures (143% over one year), four out of ten Argentinians below the poverty line, pathological debt and a currency that is falling, paint the landscape of this second round for which 36 million Argentinians were called up. to decide.
Javier Milei, an “anarcho-capitalist” economist as he describes himself, is a TV polemicist who entered politics two years ago. Defiant against the “parasitic caste”, he is determined to “cut apart” the “enemy state” and to dollarize the economy. In addition to his desire to dry up public spending, Milei also plans to “deregulate the firearms market”.