The electoral polls failed in the August elections to capture the storm that was the appearance of Javier Milei, the 53-year-old economist, far-right libertarian who declares himself ready to prune the Argentine State down to the foundations and that makes gestures of complicity with the supporters of the military dictatorship of the seventies.
Now, those same companies are taking it for granted that Milei will win in an election where the other two candidates are pushing more traditional messages. Competing with him are Sergio Massa, Minister of the Economy and representative of Peronism, who drags down the backlog of an economy, afflicted by high inflation, around 140%, and Patricia Bullrich, representative of the traditional right (she was Minister of the Interior in Mauricio Macri's cabinet). A woman with a montonero past (radicalized and guerrilla youth Peronism), now a representative of the hard hand in interior matters, one of the aspects that most worries Argentine society.
The truth is that, hours before the elections, Argentine voters were absolutely divided in this election as important as it is uncertain for the future of Argentina. Minutes before the vote was cast, they still doubted the direction in which the ballot would fall.
"I will vote for the one that seems less bad to me, but I'm already telling him that I'm in fifty percent," explained Soledad Sánchez, a public sector accountant in Buenos Aires, to the AP agency. His preferences ranged between Bullrich and Milei. "We'll see what I end up voting in the end."
The polls assumed that the candidate with the most votes would be Milei. And the doubts of some and others were at the time of knowing who would be the most suitable candidate to face him in a second round, taking for granted that whoever was the winner would not obtain a sufficient majority to proclaim himself president .
For some, Massa was the man to follow. "Milei's proposals scare me - said Yamila Papina, a public sector worker who assured that she was thinking of voting for the current centre-left Government, fearing that the man with the chainsaw (an image that has made Milei immensely popular) will deepen social cuts. "I fear that this man will make the dividing line that exists in society between the rich and the poor even wider," added Papina.
Today, Argentina is one of the world's leading exporters of grain, but it is also, and at a great distance from the rest of the countries, a major debtor to the IMF. It has large reserves of gas and oil as well as lithium. It is, therefore, a country that counts in global geopolitics.
Bullrich was until a few weeks ago the establishment's favorite candidate, the woman chosen by the business world to try to straighten out an economy crippled by inflation and corruption that seems endemic.
However, the wave of support for Milei has been gigantic, and has diluted some of the support that this woman enjoyed. Also in the business sector, especially in finance. Even so, Hernán Etchaleco affirmed that "Bullrich is the most rational, the one that makes the most reasonable proposals", explained this director of a local communications consultancy. "He is the person I want to lead this country." However, the polls put Bullrich in third place behind Massa.
Milei's strength was emphatically expressed by 24-year-old Austin Geist, who was born just before the country's most significant recent economic crisis broke out, that of 2001-2002, the effects of which are still projected on social reality . “I've lived my whole life with this. It seems to me that the time has come for change, to see if we are able to alter the reality of this country", he said in open allusion to the economist who was previously a television talk show host, where he was a place for the virulence of his opinions.
The election results are also crucial for Argentina's global position. Milei is an admirer of Trump, he was of Bolsonaro and Argentina has been formally invited to join the Brics club.
