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Javier Milei, a volatile far-right libertarian who has vowed to “exterminate” inflation and take a chainsaw to the state, has been elected president of Argentina, catapulting South America’s number two economy into an unpredictable and potentially turbulent future.
As he set off to join the party at Milei’s campaign HQ, Jiménez said he knew the result was likely to send Argentina’s peso tumbling against the dollar and cause more economic pain.
During his campaign, Milei – who will take office on 10 December – vowed to abolish the central bank and dollarise the economy in order to overcome a financial calamity that has left 40% of Argentina’s 45 million citizens in poverty and pushed inflation to more than 140%.
Milei’s victory was celebrated by other big beasts of the global far-right including Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro who had championed his campaign and has promised to attend his inauguration.
Leftwing opponents reacted with shock and dejection to the election of a notoriously erratic figure whose radical ideas include legalising the sale of organs, cutting ties with Argentina’s two biggest trade partners, Brazil and China, and closing more than a dozen ministries.
Milei – a climate-denying populist who is known by the nickname El Loco (the Madman) – has also enraged millions of Argentinians by questioning the four-decade consensus over the crimes of its 1976-83 dictatorship, during which an estimated 30,000 people were killed by the military regime.
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Holy guacamole, Argentina was at the precipice’s edge and finally decided to take a step forward
Sorry for the comrades who will have to deal with this hell
That’s going to end well…
It could be worse really. At least the people who watch NASCAR for the crashes are gonna have four very entertaining years ahead of them.
@throws_lemy I just read about this guy on a Telegram channel that I follow (content is in Romanian). What the hell?!? How can people actually vote for a crazy dude like him?!? There’s a shitload of stuff that he wants that even a moderately right-wing person would disagree.
Even our most right-wing extremists would go crazy at the thought of abolishing the national currency in exchange for a foreign one (or maybe it’s only when it’s about Euros, who knows). Let alone selling babies and organs on the free market.
I don’t think most people actually voted for him - it’s more like he was the lesser of two evils. Now consider what that says about the other candidate.
@Radiant_sir_radiant I’m still struggling to understand what could be worse than selling babies and organs on the free market.
I know, right? Consider this though: Argentina’s biggest problem right now is the economy, and his opponent in the presidential race was the current finance minister, who one could argue has already given a quite impressive demonstration of his incompetence. “Four more years of the same” simply isn’t a realistic option. Milei’s plans for the economy on the other hand could be worth a try.
I suspect he’s a bit of a calculated risk to many - some of his ideas might actually be good for the economy (not the selling babies part obviously), and his more, uhm, controversial ideas are highly likely to be blocked by parliament. In that aspect he might be the kind of healing shock that the country needs.
So far we know that he appears to have toned down his rhetoric a bit since his victory, and that the other party supporting him plans to ‘keep him in check’ in parliament. Let’s see how that turns out.
@Radiant_sir_radiant does his party have any chance of forming a majority in the parliament all by itself?
From what I hear the answer is no. The current opposition party (JxC) started supporting him when it was clear that their candidate couldn’t win against the incumbent party’s candidate (Sergio Massa, the current minister of economy), but they say they plan to vote against some of Milei’s more radical ideas.
What actually happens, and how many of his ideas Milei will actually try to get through parliament, remains to be seen.I wonder if they are banking on, to put it into meme terms, “Heartbreaking: The Worst Person You Know Just Made A Great Point”.
And obviously I mean that in terms of a “great point” for the opposition.
I really don’t know anything about the parliamentary system of this country, hell I barely know enough about my own country, but this seems like at the best an interesting play and at the worst a huge miscalculation that will bite them in the arse.
Your guess is as good as mine. 🤷♂️ You know how the things politicians say before the elections and the things they do afterwards don’t necessarily have a lot in common, so I guess it remains exciting.
