• Second round Javier Milei, the ultra-liberal candidate who captivated Argentina's youth
  • Results Javier Milei defeats Peronism and Argentina embarks on an unprecedented political experiment in the country
  • Argentina Nineteen Days and All Its Nights: The Diabolical Transition That Awaits Javier Milei Is Already Worrying in Argentina

Three weeks ago, on October 22, the results of the first round of the Argentine elections surprised by scoring the Peronist Sergio Massa in first place with 36.8% of the votes, while Javier Milei finished in second place with 29.9%. The candidate of the JxC (Together for Change) party, Patricia Bullrich, finished third with 23.8%. The day after the primaries, the ultra-liberal's meeting with former President Mauricio Macri, one of the leaders of the JxC party, anticipated what many suspected was going to happen: Patricia Bullrich's support for the economist.

On October 25, social networks, which played a fundamental role in the libertarian liberal's campaign to capture the young vote, were revolutionized after Milei published an animated image on his X and Instagram accounts in which a lion hugged a duck, and Milei is nicknamed "lion" and Bullrich the "duck". formalizing the union between the two. Minutes after this publication, the candidate of Juntos por el Cambio gave a conference in which she called on Argentines to vote for the candidate of the LLA (La Libertad Avanza) party.

In those weeks of consensus between the two parties, whose sole objective was to erase Kirchnerism from the electoral map, Macri suggested to Milei that he lower the levels of effusiveness in his speech and act more calmly in front of the public. There were less than three crucial weeks ahead of him, in which the economist had to convince more than five million people that he was the best candidate to govern the country.

In the last days before the second round, Milei was gagged and much calmer in his oratory, clarifying that he would maintain public education and health, when at first he had said that he would privatize them, something that generated an exchange of opinions among Argentines. In addition, he said that he will not promote a market for the free sale of weapons and human organs, another of the proposals that most frightened millions of Argentines. All these changes in his discourse reflected a different Milei, capable of capturing the votes he so desperately needed if he wanted to become Argentina's main president.

In the second presidential debate last week, Massa tried to provoke Milei on more than one occasion, but the libertarian liberal remained calm and did not play into the game of the Union for the Homeland candidate. Media such as Clarín or La Nación gave the Peronist as the winner of the debate, however this change in behavior in the lion influenced Argentines to vote for the economist as their president.

The ultra-liberal beat his rival by more than 11 points, a difference unthinkable days earlier when the main pollsters in the South American country gave Milei winning by only two or three points. The request of Mauricio Macri and Patricia Bullrich to the voters of the Together for Change party had a direct influence on those more than six million Argentines who elected Bullrich on October 22. If in the primaries Massa obtained 9,853,492 votes, Milei 8,034,990 and Bullrich 6,267,152, it is only necessary to do the math and see that the vast majority of those who voted for Bullrich in the primaries chose Milei, since in the second round the economist garnered 14,476,462 votes. This explains the large difference of almost three million votes between the two candidates.

However, having scrapped some of his more extreme proposals, such as an organ or arms market, does not mean that Milei will not fulfill his other promises. In fact, yesterday he already warned that he will make a very strong adjustment: He will try to sell the public companies and privatize several Argentine companies such as YPF (Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales), the public TV -historically related to Kirchnerism-, Radio Nacional and Télam (National News Agency).

During Massa's tenure as economy minister, inflation doubled, and the price of the blue dollar (parallel dollar) quadrupled; Three million people became poor and 10% of the population fell below the poverty line. The Argentine people said enough is enough and launched a new proposal, totally different from what previous governments have been doing. A fed up country that chose a new course with Milei as president.

  • Elections Argentina
  • Argentina
  • Javier Milei