Javier Milei, Argentina’s anti-establishment, pro-dollarisation and pro-privatisation president, is already making a splash. Milei, who won a surprise victory in the country’s election on Sunday, said in his campaign that the future of the Falklands ‘cannot be ignored’. The islands, he said, must be returned to Argentina.
It didn’t take long for Britain to hit back. ‘The Falkland Islands are British. That is non-negotiable and undeniable,’ defence secretary Grant Shapps wrote on Twitter/ X this morning. Brits – and Argentines – should brace themselves for much more of these bust ups now that Milei is in charge. But the future of the Falklands is likely to be far down the list of priorities for Argentina’s leader.
Once destined for grandeur, in a twist of fate Argentina finds itself in the latest in a series of crises. It is battling the third-worst annual inflation rate globally at 138 per cent, behind only Venezuela and Zimbabwe. When Milei takes office on the 10 December, he faces the tall order of fixing a devastated economy.
Argentina finds itself in the latest in a series of crises
Milei’s solution is to enforce a hard period of austerity, slash public spending, ‘burn down’ the central bank, upon which the government has become dependent for printing streams of cash, and to replace the peso with the dollar. He has already announced his intention to begin his privatisation spree with the national oil and gas company.
Milei’s win was not expected. Although he emerged as the frontrunner in the August primary elections, abruptly rising from a fringe player and a wild card to a serious contender, he finished behind his centrist rival Sergio Massa in the first round in October. Many thought it was game over for Milei, and that his strident opinions on issues like gun laws and the organ trade had turned off voters. But Milei was one step ahead of his rivals: in recent weeks, he toned down much of his rhetoric to appeal to moderate voters. The president-elect was endorsed by the conservative candidate knocked out after the first round, helping him to win over Buenos Aires. He released a ‘fake news list’ denying 26 ‘lies’ about him, including that he has had sex with his sister, that he is a Nazi, that he has psychological problems, that he talks to his dead dogs, and that he advocates the selling of children and organs. He maintained his pro-life and climate change-sceptic stance, however.
Milei’s campaign struck a chord with a disillusioned nation that blames the dominating populist ‘corporate socialist’ Peronist ideology for Argentina’s string of boom-bust cycles and defaults. Now, the hard work starts for Milei: the two-fifths of the population ensnared in poverty will expect Argentina’s president to make fixing the economy his priority.
Whether or not Milei can deliver is uncertain. But what is clear is that Milei, otherwise known as ‘el loco’ (the madman), will not make a conventional president. His campaigns saw him shaking a chainsaw before crowds and cussing his catchphrase ‘¡Viva la libertad, carajo!’, or ‘Long live freedom, goddamnit!’. The 53-year-old furiously rants about the ‘corrupt’ political elite to his 1.5 million TikTok followers. Vocal supporters overseas are trusting Milei to put Argentina back on track. Elon Musk tweeted: ‘There is prosperity ahead for Argentina’, and Donald Trump congratulated Milei, saying ‘He will Make Argentina Great Again’.
For Milei-sceptics – and worried Falklanders – the hope will be that his more polemical views will not actually pass through congress; on the more extreme end, there is fear that it will bode a return to the dark periods of eighties and nineties. To others, it is a necessary revolution of Argentinian politics that the country would only continue to stagnate and suffer without. The rest of the world will look on, entertained by his eccentric personality, to see if a fallen nation can be saved and if Milei will deliver his promises. ‘Give me twenty years, and Argentina can be converted into Italy. Give me thirty-five, and it can be converted into the USA,’ he has said. The odds are certainly against Milei.
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