With double-digit monthly price increases and more and more cases of malnutrition in the peripheral neighborhoods of Buenos Aires, Parrilla al Paso, at least, offers a plate of bread with chorizo or veal tapa accompanied with a delicious homemade chimichurri for less than two euros. That, at the Blue exchange rate applied to tourists (about 900 pesos per dollar). “We try to maintain prices, but the numbers don't let us... we don't raise much; one hundred pesos,” says Mariana, the owner of the barbecue, who is wearing the shirt of the local women's soccer club.
The improvised barbecue restaurant – part of the immense informal economy in Argentina that employs half of the population – is located at the entrance to Ciudad Evita, 20 kilometers from the center of Buenos Aires, one of the most representative neighborhoods of the years of Peronist paternalism.
It was founded in 1947 by the then president and military man Juan Domingo Perón, who expropriated land near the international airport to build 15,000 public homes, along with schools, libraries and sports centers, all of which are publicly owned.
Perhaps out of love or, perhaps, to capitalize on the popularity of the charismatic radio soap opera star whom he had married two years earlier, Perón gave instructions for the plan of the new working-class neighborhood to be designed in the shape of Eva Evita's head. Peron. It would be visible, in theory, to those who landed at the Ezeiza airport.
75 years later, nostalgia for the past is palpable at the barbecue. “These were all workers' houses,” said one of the diners, in his sixties. “Now working and buying a home is impossible.”
Although employment in Argentina is at high levels, salaries do not compete with inflation. Rentals are already out of reach for most, and mortgages are three times more expensive than rent. Four out of five Argentines between the ages of 25 and 35 still live with their parents.
Ciudad Evita, as seems logical, had been a Peronist fiefdom. Even when the conservative Mauricio Macri held the presidency (2015-2019), Peronism endured here. Cristina Fernández, the former president, a sort of ephemeral reincarnation of Eva Perón during the governments of her husband Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007), won by twenty percentage points over her Macrista rival in Ciudad Evita in the senate elections in in 2017.
But in the first round of the presidential elections being held this Sunday, there are signs that even in Ciudad Evita the Peronist candidate Sergio Massa, current Minister of Economy, is going to be defeated. Those who ate at Parrilla al Paso agreed that Javier Milei, the controversial far-right libertarian, is sweeping the Peronist fiefdoms. “For me it's unfortunate, but a lot of people here are going to vote for Milei and it's because their work doesn't give them enough to eat,” said a man in his 50s as he got up and returned to his car.
“I'm going to vote for Milei because he's new. There are some who don't like change, but I think change would be good,” said waiter Diego, 35, although his gesture revealed that he was not entirely convinced.
Milei has toured this neighborhood, like all those on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, brandishing the now famous chainsaw, a symbol of his desire to cut down everything public. The paradox is that her ultra-libertarian discourse based on privatization and the withdrawal of the State in areas such as housing, public works, education or health has nothing to do with what the people of these neighborhoods want. Milei's trump card is simple: he is neither Sergio Massa nor Patricia Bullrich, the other two candidates.
Both traditional political options are perceived with contempt after the chaos of the years of the conservative government of Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), when the debt skyrocketed, and after the Peronist government of Alberto Fernández. “All the presidents we vote for always do the same thing, you no longer know who to vote for,” added Diego, as if he were apologizing for his decision to vote for Milei. “I want her to give jobs to the kids who are on the street,” said the waiter, who, after losing his job in the formal sector, helps Marina run the barbecue.
But if the nostalgia in Ciudad Evita is for a paternalistic State, Javier Milei – opposed to all state intervention in the economy and determined to privatize healthcare, education and, of course, also the housing supply – is a strange choice.
Paradoxically, the Fernández Government has just approved a new law for the housing sector that prohibits landlords from charging in dollars and that attempts to soften rent increases. Milei's four libertarian deputies in Parliament voted against the law.
At the same time, Massa has launched the Own House-Build Future program, which aims to make 264,000 subsidized homes available, through the construction of new houses or the renovation of existing buildings.
It is not an electoral promise that is impossible to fulfill. Many works are already underway. Around the corner, in front of a hive of activity with cranes, excavators and workers in orange jackets and white helmets, a sign announces: “Construction of 218 homes (...) Ministry of Territorial Development and Habitat.”
These 60 square meter, two-bedroom homes will help at least young people get a home in Ciudad Evita. But if Milei wins, projects like this will hardly be authorized... Ultimately, among the ten ministries that the ultra-libertarian wants to eliminate is the Ministry of Territorial Development and Habitat.
Despite this, it may already be too late for voters in popular neighborhoods to realize the contradiction. In front of the Casa Propia project in Ciudad Evita, a security guard exemplified the psychology of the Milei voter: “I am a gendarme, but I have to work here in security as well to make ends meet.” His message to young people looking for a subsidized house was taken from Milei's speech: “Let them work!”
