Milei’s Rise Exposes Argentina’s Malaise

When Javier Milei rose to first place in Argentina’s recent national primaries, observers around the world disagreed on how to best make sense of the insurgent candidate. Brazil’s center-right Estadao newspaper described Milei as “extremist” and “far right”; Al Jazeera characterized him as a “populist,” while El País referred to him as an “ultraliberal libertarian” and highlighted that Milei thinks of himself as an “anarcho-capitalist.”

That debate will continue as Milei now seems to have a serious shot at becoming the next tenant of the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires; Argentines head to the polls to decide on Oct. 22. And perhaps such varying descriptions are only natural for a candidate who doesn’t belong to an established political party—and who defends policy proposals that often seem incompatible and, his critics say, ill conceived. His proposals to lift capital restrictions, lower taxes, repay the country’s debts to the International Monetary Fund, and modernize labor laws would find support among mainstream liberals, yet his calls for permitting the sale of human organs and abolishing the ministries of environment, health, and education reflect radical libertarian views.

At the same time, Milei’s decision to pick Victoria Villarruel, notorious for her defense of Argentina’s 1976-83 dictatorship, as his running mate, reveals illiberal and possibly authoritarian inclinations. In the past, Villarruel has regularly engaged in denialist discourse about one of Argentina’s darkest periods, rejecting that the generals disappeared tens of thousands of people. Milei has himself argued that if the Argentine Congress were unwilling to support his policies, he would govern via referendums, a strategy that Venezuela’s former President Hugo Chávez deployed to erode the country’s democratic foundations.

Milei’s promise to significantly downgrade ties to Brazil and China, Argentina’s first- and second-largest trading partners, as well as his climate change denialism, smacks of far-right populism in the style of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, with potentially dangerous consequences for Argentina’s economy. Milei wants closer ties to the United States, Argentina’s third-largest trading partner, but has described U.S. President Joe Biden as a socialist, which may complicate those efforts. (Milei has also attacked Gabriel Boric, the progressive president of Chile, Argentina’s fourth-largest trading partner). It comes as no surprise that Bolsonaro, who ran as an anti-China candidate but ended his term largely as an anti-Western leader, endorsed Milei days ahead of the Argentine primaries. Former Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, a far-right leader who admires former dictator Augusto Pinochet, and Spain’s far-right Vox party welcomed Milei’s strong electoral performance during the primaries as well.

Yet while Milei has vowed to loosen gun restrictions, eliminate the recently created Ministry for Women, and end government efforts to fight racism, it would be a mistake to describe his surge as a clear sign of a rightward shift in Argentina. In past years, Argentina has played a leading role in implementing progressive reforms, such as with its legalization of abortion in 2021. Milei’s opposition to abortion contradicts his libertarian views and seems to make him a social conservative—but that label does not sit well with his support for gay marriage, which he thinks is simply another contract between two adults in which the state has no right to interfere.

This unusual mix of ideas may explain why markets reacted negatively to Milei’s stellar performance in the primaries. In Brazil, when Bolsonaro won, domestic investors celebrated his victory and the country’s economic elites largely supported him throughout his turbulent 4 years in office. But Milei is even more of an outsider than Bolsonaro, who had served decades as a congressman and was thus a somewhat more predictable entity; Milei has been elected just once to Argentina’s Congress, in 2021. During his tenure, he made few friends and presented no substantial legislative proposals. In the eyes of investors domestic and foreign, Milei represents a greater risk than the former Brazilian president to whom he is often compared.

More than his disparate policy recommendations, it is in fact Milei’s credentials as a complete outsider—and a bit of a social misfit—that are key to understanding his popularity. In a country suffering from 115 percent annual inflation and steadily rising poverty rates, the ultimate non-conformist and anti-establishment candidate with rhetoric centered around a promise to combat the “parasitic political caste” is hugely appealing; this status is likely more relevant to Milei’s electoral success than his views on issues such as inflation and foreign policy. It is Milei’s “us vs. them” narrative and perceived authenticity that explain how he was able, without the support of a party machinery, to become one of the top contenders for the presidency of South America’s second-largest country.

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Milei may, at first sight, strike observers as representing something genuinely new. He is, above all, another product of a deepening disillusionment with traditional politics that has become a staple of Latin American politics over the past decade, and which explains the shock victories of outsiders Bolsonaro in Brazil in 2018, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador in 2019, and Pedro Castillo in Peru 2021, and the popularity of other surprise candidates who came close to winning, such as Rodolfo Hernández in Colombia in 2021. Further back, the same phenomenon allowed the rise of figures such as Abdalá Bucaram in Ecuador in 1996 and Chávez in Venezuela in 1998. It is not a pure coincidence that Milei’s nickname as an adolescent—el loco (“the crazy one”)— is the same moniker under which Bucaram used to campaign.

As long as Latin American democracies are unable to guarantee macroeconomic stability, effective measures to combat inflation, better public security, and lower inequality, they will provide the breeding ground for radical iconoclasts. Accidental figures such as Milei, Castillo, Bolsonaro, Chávez, and Bukele would probably not have risen in a more stable setting. As is, they tend to follow one of two paths: either failing miserably without causing long-term damage (Castillo) or posing severe threats to their country’s democratic institutions (Chávez, Bukele, and Bolsonaro). So what will Milei accomplish, if he topples the current, hapless Argentine President Alberto Fernández?

Predicting how many radical proposals an outsider without significant executive experience can implement usually depends on three factors. First, the more consolidated a country’s institutions are, the more difficult it will be for an inexperienced maverick to implement extreme policies. Both former U.S. President Donald Trump and Bolsonaro, for example, were constrained by checks and balances that they were ultimately unable to overcome—particularly when trying to overturn their respective failures to win reelection. Secondly, outsiders’ capacities to bring change depends on their support from existing structures, such as large parties, economic elites, the armed forces, or unions. Milei seems to lack significant support from any such groups, and since his allies in legislative and gubernatorial elections did not perform well, Milei’s La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) party would occupy just a small minority in the Argentine Senate and Chamber of Deputies. This suggests he will face an uphill battle.

The third and most important question is whether the policies proposed create, at least initially, a feel-good factor among the population that might provide outsiders with time—enough of it to forge ahead and possibly undermine democracy such that the outsiders are too entrenched by the time voters change their mind. That is precisely what happened in Venezuela, where Chávez benefitted from a commodities boom that provided the cash for a highly effective but ultimately disastrous spending spree, during which the president systematically eroded checks and balances. The same is happening in El Salvador, where Bukele’s radical approach to combatting criminal gangs has temporarily improved the security situation in the country and boosted approval ratings, which the president has used to concentrate political power.

Conversely, if highly inexperienced outsiders must confront adverse economic conditions and falling approval ratings (as was the case with Castillo in Peru), they tend to be less capable of recovering. In a similar way, both Bolsonaro and Trump were unlucky to govern during the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed their lack of experience.

A lot would therefore depend on what Milei’s initial acts would do to Argentina’s very vulnerable economy. There will be a probable wave of protests to austerity measures—and more radical moves such as closing the Central Bank of Argentina and dollarizing the economy—and it remains an open question to what extent the Argentine economy will benefit from dynamics that the government has no control over, such as global commodity prices.

While presidents face many constraints domestically, Milei would enjoy greater autonomy when it comes to foreign policy. Following Bolsonaro’s example, Milei proposes transferring Argentina’s Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Yet while Bolsonaro had the advantage of being able to swim in the slipstream of Trump during his first two years in office, Milei’s foreign policy would probably be slightly more measured to avoid being on bad terms with both China and the United States (despite numerous attacks against Biden).

When asked how his relationship to leftist leaders in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico might progress, however, Milei responded: “I don’t have partnerships with socialists.” What seems certain is that his victory would significantly complicate efforts by Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to promote regional cooperation in South America.