He lost the battle but not the war. Apologist for the bloody dictatorship of the seventies, Javier Milei would surely agree with this military summary of his surprising defeat in the first round of the presidential elections in Argentina last Sunday.
For the moment, the assault on the presidency of the controversial candidate of the new right, both libertarian and authoritarian, has been stopped. The controversial La Libertad Avanza candidate – who hoped to lead the vote and even win the elections in the first round – only achieved 30% of the votes compared to 37% for the government coalition candidate and current Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa.
Massa's comeback has been spectacular. She added 15 percentage points to the result obtained in the August primaries, winning almost ten million votes compared to Milei's almost eight million. Left for dead, Massa has once again demonstrated the legendary resilience of Peronism, as well as the strength of the anti-Milei vote.
The radical proposals of the libertarian candidate in the economic sphere – especially dollarization – have generated fear about the future, while his minimization of the crimes of the dictatorship raised suspicions about the past.
That said, in volatile elections that are difficult to predict, it cannot be ruled out that Milei will win the second round on November 19. Facing the Peronist Massa, at a time of triple-digit inflation and economic collapse, and with some eight million votes from the center-right to be disputed, much will depend on whether a candidate known for his visceral anti-system rhetoric knows how to convince the undecided that his victory it would not open the way to chaos.
It's perfectly possible. In the end, if the expectation of a victory for Milei scared the voters of the center in the first round, the possible permanence in power of the heirs of Néstor Kirchner, the Peronist who carried out a strong redistribution of income in favor of the popular classes that had dire fiscal consequences, can mobilize the anti-Peronist vote in the second.
“I am willing to turn the page and fight Kirchnerism,” Milei said in his post-election speech, a gesture towards the voters of the defeated center-right candidate Patricia Bullrich – the main victim of the emergence into Argentine politics of the self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist.” ”.
Bullrich is the big loser of the election day with a poor result, around 24% of the votes. His coalition of neoliberal followers of former president Mauricio Macri and anti-Peronist radicals already seems doomed to disintegrate. It is another indication of a structural crisis of the neoliberal center-right in Latin America – from Brazil to Chile – in the face of the advance of a new radical and populist right.
Against the odds, Milei could not make this crisis profitable in the first round. With a record abstention, the outsider candidate failed to mobilize the vote of the Argentines most disaffected with the political system, as some had anticipated.
At the same time, Massa, integrated into an eclectic center-left alliance, managed to recover votes in the Peronist fiefdoms where Milei's populism seemed to be giving results. “Many of those who voted for us are the ones who are suffering the most,” Massa said on Sunday night. On the one hand, the support measures for those most affected by skyrocketing prices have driven Massa's comeback, despite being described as irresponsible and electoralist by the opposition and by economists around the IMF. Likewise, the campaign focused on youth – which has had the advice of the Catalan Antoni Gutiérrez-Rubí – has produced results. As much as there is talk about Milei's twenty-something libertarians, many young Argentines are horrified by Milei's far-right speech.
But everything indicates that the key factor in Milei's defeat in the first round has been fear of his reckless economic proposals. By applauding the depreciation of the peso against the dollar for laying the groundwork for his dollarization plan, Milei appears to have scared some of his own voters. “Many people were scared and made a useful vote for Massa,” said an economist consulted in Buenos Aires.
The result unleashed euphoria in Massa's campaign and astonishment in the media and political analysis centers. “That the Minister of Economy in a country that has an inflation of 140% is the most voted is surprising,” said a veteran journalist in Buenos Aires who considered that Massa is already a favorite.
The victory of Massa's coalition, Unión por la Patria, in the elections for governor of the province of Buenos Aires was even more overwhelming. Áxel Kicillof won re-election in the first round. This despite the scandal involving his chief of staff, who was photographed on a yacht in Marbella in the middle of the election campaign. Of course, the traditional right triumphed in the city of Buenos Aires, where the former president's cousin, Jorge Macri, remains in charge of the Government.
The 6.3 million votes of Bullrich, and his coalition, Together for Change, will be Milei's main target in the second round. After attacking the so-called caste in the first phase of his assault on the presidency, the rebel candidate is already seeking consensus. Massa, for his part, will try to attract the radicals in the coalition forged without success at the polls by Bullrich. The almost two million votes of Juan Schiaretti, the Peronist governor of Córdoba, who has hinted that he would be willing to work with Milei, may be decisive. “Can an anti-Kirchnerist front be articulated? It is a possible project,” summarized analyst Rosendo Fraga in Clarín.
