Stupid cupid – an $LIBRA of love

Exactly one year ago today the first black swan came along after probably the longest presidential honeymoon in Argentine history – an improbable romance of 14 months between President Javier Milei and the Argentine electorate was abruptly interrupted on the 14th day of the year’s shortest month in the form of a post-modern version of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre almost a century afterwards with the multi-billion bubble of the ‘$LIBRA’ crypto-currency bursting in Milei’s face. An entirely self-inflicted blow to libertarian credibility – for reasons yet to be clarified, Milei opted to plug the token on his social media (with some 14 million followers), sending the token’s value soaring to a stratospheric US$4.5 billion, only for its creators headed by the Texan shyster Hayden Davis to pull the rug and Milei to withdraw his support (within minutes or even seconds of each other, making it difficult to say which came first), thus causing a bonanza for a few and ruinous losses for many even if there is no law guaranteeing speculative gamblers (who hardly come from the most vulnerable sectors of society) a gain, a point Milei was quick to make with caveat emptor logic. But if he regards the cryptic crypto world as a casino, why was he endorsing it?

But like sorrows, when scandals come, they come not in single spies but in battalions (to rephrase Hamlet) - the transparency of Milei’s 2023 campaign financing came into question last Autumn but the biggest exposés were saved (deliberately and maliciously?) for the run-up to last September’s key Buenos Aires Province elections. Previous funding from a businessman now negotiating a plea of guilty on drug-trafficking charges in Texas (dating all the way back to 2019 but rehashed with strategic timing) derailed the top midterm candidacy of Congress Budget Committee chairman José Luis Espert, a massive blow, but a much bigger impact came from the graft scandal in ANDIS national disability agency due to the acute social sensitivity of the area. Dissolving that agency last December has not made that problem go away because the case has now resurfaced in the anniversary week of $LIBRA with ANDIS ex-chief Diego Spagnuolo sent to trial last Monday along with 18 other defendants. On the same day  Transparency International knocked Argentina out of its top 100 countries, demoting it from 99th to 104th position with a percentage of 36.

The ANDIS trial is only just starting – the case has changed abruptly with Spagnuolo moved from prosecution to defence and it can change again. The scandal erupted last August with Spagnuolo now in the dock pointing the finger with those voice messages talking of kickbacks (including that “three percent” for Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei although the collection was attributed to the Menem clan) in return for awarding massive contracts to supply medicine for the disabled to pharmaceutical chains, basically Suizo Argentina SA. But federal judge Sebastián Casanello has found sufficient evidence of Spagnuolo being on the take himself to place him on trial without his co-defendants including any Menems, the Kovalivker family running Suizo Argentina (why does the word “corruption” so often begin with a “K” in Argentina?) or far less Karina Milei. Yet at the same time Casanello hinted darkly at “other levels of complicity” while adding: “The investigation should not leave such aspects aside but they should be clarified and deepened” – not that he is offering any such clarification himself since he is about to depart to another case left uncovered by the epidemic vacancy of benches reaching nearly 40 percent.

Spagnuolo’s shift from accuser to the dock is not only the result of judicial investigation but also self-inflicted at least in part – for some months now he has been insisting that the voice messages were doctored, thus effectively exonerating those he originally accused and taking the rap himself. An investigation by Chequeado fact-finders has not detected any reason to doubt the authenticity of the famous audios but should Spagnuolo now be telling the truth, the spotlight would immediately fall on those making the voice messages public – namely, the Carnaval streaming channel under the thumb of none other than AFA Argentine Football Association treasurer Pablo Toviggino, at the heart of yet another of last year’s corruption scandals which this time has the government on the offensive. So could the whole ANDIS scandal be an electorally timed invention of Milei’s sworn AFA enemies? Or is the President’s former friend and lawyer Spagnuolo loyally disavowing his previous accusations in a bid to force this conclusion?

$LIBRA for Saint Valentine’s Day last year and now the ANDIS case returns in its anniversary week – was the former a game-changer and does the latter look like being one now? Milei’s thumping midterm triumph last October obviously says otherwise. As a scandal $LIBRA never really advanced beyond a Congress commission groping for electoral advantage and was eclipsed by both the ANDIS and Espet scandals when the country went to the polls in spring – the crypto world is too incomprehensible for most with few victims in comparison with the hundreds of thousands of families with a disabled member. Here and now Spagnuolo’s trial is in this week’s news but hardly competes with the labour reform bill or last month’s inflation with the controversial continuation of an outdated methodology – neither drawing the midweek protests of the former nor provoking the question-marks over the government’s credibility of the latter.

Milei’s obsession with the economy and cavalier attitude towards the institutions alike make him indifferent to corruption and nor has the course of events done much to change his mind. When reproached for the sale of candidacies during his 2023 presidential campaign, Milei’s attitude was that if candidacies are a market commodity like everything else, why not? – his definition of corruption would seem extremely narrow. Last spring’s midterm victory after the $LIBRA, ANDIS and Espert scandals would only confirm an “It’s the economy, stupid” conclusion. Entirely needless damage to his image from his $LIBRA stunt on Saint Valentine’s Day last February but perhaps not such a stupid cupid after all.