Since this Monday, the Government of Javier Milei has been in “recalculating” mode. Whatever the result of the elections held on Sunday in Argentina, the far-right president will have to forge new internal alliances, change part of his Cabinet of ministers and tweak his economic adjustment model, standing today thanks to Milei, who presented the day as a fight for political survival, an unusual all-or-nothing bet for elections that rarely set society’s thermometer regarding the management of the Government. But this is not a common cycle in Argentina: Milei came to power two years ago with barely any representation in Congress, without a single provincial governor of his own and a team with little experience. He hoped, therefore, that the polls would grant him a little peace in the daily struggle for governability.
The presidential wishes will not be satisfied. Just four months ago, Milei predicted to anyone who wanted to listen that his party, La Libertad Avanza, would get between 40% and 45% of the votes in the legislative elections. “Freedom sweeps away,” he used to say. That meant adding 15 points to . According to the presidential reading, the difference would be evidence of popular support for his management, especially economic. As if by magic, thanks to the power of the ballot box, the markets would trust Argentina again, the peso would no longer need external help to not die and the opposition, at least the dialogueist one, would support without a word the structural reforms that the extreme right has in mind. Peronism, meanwhile, would be reduced to nothing.
But all this changed starting in June, when they happened. The president later had to sacrifice his main candidate for deputy in Buenos Aires because the economy began to falter at the pace of the scandals. Without international reserves, investors fled Argentine bonds and the peso collapsed. Added to the economic paralysis derived from the adjustment, the social mood changed rapidly. who generously extended his hand with a swap (currency exchange) of 20,000 million dollars and a credit for a similar amount financed with private funds. In September, the election for provincial legislators in Buenos Aires, a bastion of Peronism. The sum of calamities could not be worse. In the Casa Rosada they expected on Sunday night that the 45% they expected would remain at least above 30%.
If the polls finally give a third of the votes to Milei, the Government will be able to say that he survived. If the sum of the votes of the 23 provinces plus the city of Buenos Aires is, however, below, the management will enter an unpredictable scenario. A comfortable balsamic victory was ruled out. In any case, nothing will be the same.
On Monday, Milei will have to open up to a negotiation with the non-Peronist opposition, approaching the governors who at first helped him and then turned their backs on him. And, above all, he will have to change a cabinet worn out by internal fights.
That was the express request of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which, yet another, of 20,000 million dollars. And it is also the condition that came from Washington after the rescue. In a meeting with Milei at the White House on October 14, Trump said that the continuity of the far right. The markets understood the message and Argentine bonds plummeted in a matter of hours.
The Argentine delegation panicked and only after arduous efforts did they get the US Treasury Secretary and architect of the rescue, Scott Bessent, to say on social networks that the aid would be maintained regardless of the result. For Washington, Argentina is now an unconditional ally in the region. “I prefer to extend an exchange line [de divisas] “That, as we have to do, they leave Venezuela,” Bessent said on Sunday.
The governability that the United States asks of Milei implies a rapprochement with the governors, all of whom are opponents. They are the ones who have the key to the votes in the Senate. During the first year of administration they supported Milei, but trust was broken due to unfulfilled promises and the president’s insistence on calling them “fiscal degenerates”, “baboons” and “left-handed sons of bitches”, at best. The last six months were a legislative ordeal for Milei, with a series of laws that he had to veto because he considered them contrary to his fiscal surplus policy.
“If you need anything, call me.”
Eyes are also on former president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), a key ally of the extreme right who distanced himself from similar mistreatment. Macri voted on Sunday around noon and remembered that Milei has his phone number. “I am available to talk about how to generate governability and bring about change, but we have not talked about ministers. Yes [ Milei] He needs something, he’s going to call me,” he said at the foot of the urn.
Macri’s mention of possible changes in ministers was not coincidental. Three of the current ones must leave their positions in December because they will take office as deputies or senators. Milei has also just lost his Foreign Minister, Gerardo Werthein, a powerful businessman with ties to Washington who slammed the door in the middle of the campaign’s close, fed up with friendly fire from the Casa Rosada. The attacks on Werthein came from the digital forces of the extreme right commanded by Santiago Caputo, an unpaid advisor to whom Milei has given control of the intelligence services and tax collection. The fight between Caputo, nephew of Luis Caputo, the Minister of Economy, and the president’s sister, Karina Milei, is the other disaster that weighs on the libertarian administration.
Milei has so far kept the dispute between his main strategist and the woman who is, in addition to his most powerful official, his emotional support, under the rug. But on Monday he will no longer be able to continue kicking the problem forward. Each represents opposing groups within the administration, which at times has been paralyzed by ministers and secretaries’ fear of dying in battle. How all these variables will be accommodated will depend on the electoral result. The only thing that is certain is that Milei will no longer be the same starting this Monday.
