CPAC Argentina: Milei calls for ‘cultural battle’ against left in speech

President Javier Milei railed against his critics, the press and political opponents on Wednesday as he called for the founding of an international alliance of right-wing leaders and nations.

Addressing the CPAC Argentina summit in Buenos Aires as the final speaker of the one-day event, Milei was greeted with cheers as he took to the speech and fired off a typically impassioned rant against his enemies.

Declaring that the “new winds of freedom are sweeping through the world,” the La Libertad Avanza called on his domestic and international allies to launch a “cultural battle” to ensure “lefties” and socialists cannot gain power.

"We must stand together, establishing channels of cooperation throughout the world. We could call ourselves a right-wing international, a network of mutual assistance made up of all those interested in spreading the ideas of freedom around the world," Milei told the crowd to cheers.

"It is our moral duty to defend the legacy of our western civilisation," said the right-wing leader. 

"The only way to fight socialism is from the right. The extreme centre, its positions and tools are always and everywhere functional to the criminal left," he added.

'Neanderthal' critics

With less than a week to go before he celebrates one year in office, Milei slammed opponents who “took it for granted” that his government "would fail politically."

"The popcorn eaters must be well stuffed because we haven’t given them the satisfaction," Milei boasted, referring to sectors within Peronism who predicted that his administration would not last its mandate.

"We are running the best government in history," he said, branding his critics "neanderthals."

"You can't raise the white flag in front of the left, trying to appease them is not an option. They do not act out of good faith, but out of a criminal ambition for power. They would rather the country collapse than prosper without them," he claimed. 

"That is why there is no room for those who demand consensus, forms and good manners. Forms are means, today to submit to the demands of forms is to raise a white flag in the face of an inclement enemy. Fire is fought with fire. And if they accuse us of violence, I remind them that we are the reaction to 100 years of outrages," Milei declared.

Lashing out at one of his favoured foes, the media, Milei referenced a phrase delivered by popular streamer and La Libertad Avanza militant Daniel 'Gordo Dan' ("Fat Dan") Parisini during the launch event for Las Fuerzas del Cielo ("The Forces of Heaven"), a group of militant Milei supporters. 

During the event, Parisini claimed the political group was "the armed wing" of La Libertad Avanza, comments that raised eyebrows given Argentina’s dark history of dictatorships and disappearances.

"Look at the wretchedness of the media,” complained Milei. “They took the phrase, cut it, removed the last part, which was a clear reference to a mobile phone, and began talking about an armed wing, comparing us to those bastards who, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, were killing people," the President said.

In attendance

This is the first conservative CPAC summit to be held in Buenos Aires. The last CPAC donors' and investors’ meeting took place in Florida, United States, after Donald Trump's election victory. Milei was in attendance that night, becoming the first world leader to meet the US president-elect.

A number of government ministers and ruling party figures also appeared at the event at the Hilton Hotel in Puerto Madero, including Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, Economy Minister Luis Caputo and Buenos Aires Province deputy Agustín Romo.

Journalists, including Jonatan Viale, Javier Negre, Antonio Laje, and Mariano Pérez also spoke during an event moderated by Presidential Spokesperson, Manuel Adorni. Parisini, tipped for a congressional run in next year's midterms, was also a speaker at the summit.

The Times applied for access to the event but was refused entry.

On Tuesday, Milei attended a gala dinner with conference participants and summit organisers.

Among the most prominent attendees were US conservative commentators Ben Shapiro, Lara Trump, a US Republican figure and Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law; the leader of the far-right Spanish party Vox, Santiago Abascal; and São Paulo deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro, son of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, among others.

Bolsonaro did not attend, but like ex-Trump far-right spin doctor Steve Bannon, he sent a video message that played out on the screen. 

Bannon, in his message, praised Milei and said “the fate of South America is in the hands of Milei and the patriots of Argentina.”

Bolsonaro on fugitives

During his brief message, ex-Brazil president Bolsonaro thanked Milei for providing refuge for supporters of his convicted of attacking Brazilian public authorities in 2023.

“This act of welcoming these politically condemned people, these refugees who are there, for us, the good Brazilians, it will not be possible to forget it,” Bolsonaro, who governed Brazil between 2019 and 2023, said in a video broadcast.

The former president was referring to fugitive Brazilians who remain on the run in Argentina. They were convicted in Brazil for the attack on the three branches of government in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, a week after Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's inauguration.

In November, Argentina’s courts ordered the arrest of 61 Brazilians who are wanted for extradition in connection with the 2023 attack on the three branches of government.

Bolsonaro again denied having had “active participation” in a foiled coup plot in 2022 to prevent Lula's inauguration, as a police investigation concluded last week.

“All I did at the end of 2022 was to pressure the electoral courts to look at certain incongruities,” he said.

– TIMES/AFP/NA