Update: we have a runoff election in a month, the libertarian candidate got about 30% of the vote, the IMHO least worst option of the Peronists got around 36%, the “reasonable” right got around 20%, a peronist offshoot got about 5% and the lefty left got around 3%.
So we are still alive, like in the World Cup when we lost against Saudi Arabia and then won against Mexico.
Now we need to convince half of those that didn’t vote for the Libertarians to vote for the Peronists and we are set.
Then we’ll have the little detail of the horrid macroeconomic conditions we are facing, but we’ve faced similar things before and survived, we can do it again.
From a 20,000 foot viewpoint, sounds to be in the same good direction as the Polish election results last week.
Massive polling failure?
All I can say is Whew.
Here’s the take of the center-right Economist magazine (center-left by US standards):
On October 22nd Argentines will vote in a presidential election. For the first time in decades, two of the three leading candidates are offering free-market solutions to the country’s many problems.
Those two candidates are Javier Milei, a libertarian who is leading the polls, and Patricia Bullrich, a centre-right former security minister who is the candidate for Together for Change, the main centre-right coalition (see chart 1). Mr Milei, who wields a chainsaw to symbolise his approach to the state, has promised to slash public spending by 15% of GDP (it is currently around 40% of GDP), scrap most taxes, privatise state-owned companies and swap the local currency, the peso, for the dollar. His coalition, Freedom Advances, was created only in 2021. Ms Bullrich also wants to balance the budget by cutting spending, beef up central-bank independence and have a dual-currency system in which both the dollar and the peso would be accepted.
Ok, so public spending is now a not-extreme 40% of GDP and Milei wants to make it 25%, overnight I guess. Sounds like a recipe for recession. The Economist reports that the existing government has good relations with the IMF, to put the proposal by Mr. Chainsaw in context. The Economist concludes:
“Argentina’s principal problem is political,” says Mr Rapetti. An addiction to charismatic leaders who co-opt state institutions rather than build political consensus has made it impossible to implement good policies and maintain them over time. Other countries in Latin America have managed to stabilise their economies by creating independent central banks, targeting inflation and getting their fiscal accounts in order. All this led to stable currencies. It is unlikely that a similar combination of policies could be implemented quickly in Argentina, because of years of distortions and handouts. Painful economic policies are also likely to lead to massive protests.
Rough sledding ahead. I once believed that, “An addiction to charismatic leaders who co-opt state institutions rather than build political consensus”, was a vice that postwar upper-income countries were immune to. I no longer believe that, which makes the sober study of middle-income troubles more than a passing interest.
There are some similitudes
There is no doubt that rough times are ahead, but the current “least worst” option, Massa, is no kind of “Charismatic Populist”, to the point that he is a populist is because he belongs to the party historically voted by the poor, but he’s far more orthodox, economically speaking than most peronists.
The best case scenario would be that the drought that’s been hobbling our inflows of hard currency ends, that the newly opened shale oil and gas deposits in Vaca Muerta pay off and that any necessary fiscal adjustments needed after that can be implemented with the least suffering possible and sold to the masses as inevitable by their historical party.
Any way, the fascists need to lose first, then we’ll see, as I said before we’ve faced similar situations before and rebounded.
Agreed, Chainsaw Milei is the charismatic populist. From my perspective based on 20 minutes of poking around on the internet, I have some sympathies for the center-right candidate. No way would I support the chainsaw though.
It’s understandable, personally I can’t stand Bullrich, but I can see how a reasonable person could vote her (if I squint a little), no reasonable person can vote for the maniac.
And as Bertell Ollman quipped, we choose from the evil of two lessers.
So it looks like Bullrich is in third, and Massa won 36%. Sounds hopeful.
Exactly…
but!
The runoff result will hinge on whether or not Bulrich voters hate peronists enough to give the country to a madman or not. Given that their political identity has been to a great extent defined by their anti-peronism I will not rest easy until I see Massa with 50.00001% of the votes in November.
This article seems reasonably accurate:
It is an interesting thing (which is not totally unique to Argentina) : what used to be the “populist” movement has become cast as the much-derided “Establishment”. However, yes, the main counterforce has swung to an extreme reactionary “burn it all down” position.
I wonder if in this case the extremist side has gained support by capitalizing on frustration that nobody seems to be able to just retire and bury “Peronism” (whether or not it exists in name only any more) and by now many voters look at Peronism and say “but why won’t it f&@$%^ DIE already???”, and feel it has pervaded so much of the structure that if only a Purge by Fire can do it, then so be it and never mind who gets hurt.
Kind of an odd feeling, how at the start of this century the nationalis-populist trend in LatAm was seen as a worrying phenomenon of the left and now we’re on the other end.
The problem is that they are never going to get rid of peronism, because the idea of social justice (the official name for peronism used to be “Justicialismo”) is not going to die, least of all here in Argentina.
if decades of military dictatorship, proscription and censorship, the forced dissapeareance and killing of 30.000 argentinians, bombing the plaza de mayo with navy bombers, forbidding the very mention of the name “peronism” in newspapers and tv, etc didn’t do it burning the country to the ground is not going to do it either, it’s more likely to have the opposite efect.
And how dismaying it must be, that after having gone through all of that, a generation later a large part of that same society can possibly be willing to just vote to throw it all away because it’s the “establishment” and it has been propagandistically associated with a name they are tired of hearing.
Thus my OP.
Argentina was a glorious country a century ago, and remains so today. It has had economic problems and some present populism. There may be reason to fear, but not to lose faith, values and expectations seem to have improved over five decades, and in any case the polls did not seem to match first round results and there is clear ambiguity. I cannot say I fully understand your experiences. But please accept my offer of hope and my warm regards. Stay strong.
Thanks!, I hope we choose sanity in November and this ends up being a scare.
Even so, if that happens and conditions do not improve we are going to face something similar or worse in the next election, I hope those who end up in charge are aware of this and will not fumble this last chance.
Said more eloquently than I could have done! Same!
You want to share an article that reflects your concerns on this? I’m not up to speed on Argentina, I could Google it, but would prefer a source filtered by someone who’s closer to it.
I think as people become more and more insecure they move right (politically) thinking that party will let them keep what little that have left.
Of course, it is usually the conservative side of the political spectrum that will see you lose it all faster.
Conservatives succeed because it is MUCH easier to point at the other person and tell you they are the source of your problems than to see how the real threat is them fleecing you but at some remove.