Time could be running out for Milei

Despite lacking a parliamentary majority, Javier Milei’s government has been able to behave as though it had an enormous one, because no other politician has been in a position to challenge him. While this may seem to be an advantage for him, it is anything but. Not only here but in other democratic countries, governments that have little to fear from an effective opposition soon fall prey to the internal squabbles which politicians, who are competitive by nature and often worry more about their own place in the party pecking order than in solving social or economic problems on behalf of the government they serve, so greatly enjoy.

Unless a government is kept on its toes by outside rivals that could easily replace it, its leading figures can be relied upon to devote more and more time to feathering their own political nests. Not surprisingly, this is what is happening here. Milei’s inner circle is currently split between individuals who are close to his sister, Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei and those who are linked to the most influential presidential strategist, Santiago Caputo.

By all accounts, Karina’s faction is winning the struggle which, needless to say, has nothing to do with serious differences over policy. With the possible exception of her brother, Karina is the most powerful person in Argentina, but nobody seems to have the slightest idea of what, if anything, she stands for.

Internal conflicts like this ongoing one are contributing to the erosion of confidence in the government and distracting the attention of its members from more serious administrative matters. For Milei, this is risky. Unlike other politicians who think they owe what popularity they have to their alleged ability to feel other people’s pain, his is based on the belief that he and he alone knows what will have to be done to repair a broken-down economy and, what is almost as important, that he is more than willing to take strong measures if they are called for. He positively demands to be judged by results. If the word gets round that members of the government he formally leads are so obsessed with factional warfare that it is incapable of functioning properly and this is why the economy has yet to go into orbit as he promised, the public support he still enjoys will quickly melt away.

Equally damaging is the cloud of corruption that continues to hang over his administration. Though the sins attributed to Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni do not bear comparison to those that were routinely perpetrated by the Kirchnerites and their cronies, the voters who chose Milei over Sergio Massa are not people who tend to shrug off or even admire robbery on an epic scale. Most believe that government members should be held to higher standards than ordinary citizens. Even those who would like to blame the involvement of Milei in what seems to have been a cryptocurrency scam on his naivety are disinclined to believe the same of his sister who, unlike her brother, is not regarded as a kind of idiot-savant obsessed with higher things but as a surprisingly ruthless operator who puts her own interests first.

Until quite recently, many took it for granted that Milei would get re-elected next year if only because he would not have to face any rival more appealing than Axel Kicillof, the lacklustre governor of Buenos Aires Province and former favourite of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Though some warn that at any moment an outsider could suddenly appear on the scene – as Milei himself did in the run-up to the 2025 presidential elections – for now at any rate this is mere speculation. However, even if nothing like this happens, a combination of economic hard times, government incompetence and the yobbish behaviour of some pro-Milei “influencers” could create a situation in which enough voters manage to persuade themselves that virtually any alternative would be better than a continuation of the status quo.

To prevent anything like this from happening, the many politicians and others who broadly agree with Milei about the need to restructure the economy and make it more capitalistic, but are put off by his many eccentricities, will have to prepare themselves to offer the electorate a moderate variant of the party that now accompanies the government. After winning in 2025, Milei and his sister immediately set about cannibalising the coalition that, before his arrival, was widely expected to replace the Kirchnerite dispensation but which failed to do so in part because people objected to the ferocious internal battle for the top spot between Patricia Bullrich and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta. Also because many understandably felt that the economy was in such terrible shape that it would need doses of a far stronger medicine than people associated with Mauricio Macri would be willing to apply.

Since then much has changed. Milei has already done most of what timorous politicians call “the dirty work” by tackling overspending and the rackets set up by people eager to get their hands on money earmarked for welfare projects. He has also done much to put paid to the notion that a public-spirited government could stoke inflation with impunity because it would help make the economy more dynamic. This means that, unless the country falls into the hands of people determined to restore the old order Milei is now dismantling, a future “centrist” government would have fairly solid foundations on which to build.

It would also reap the benefits of the transformation of Argentina into an energy-exporting country, the continued growth of the farming sector and the belated recognition that it makes no sense to leave minerals buried underground for supposedly patriotic reasons when they could be providing the country with huge amounts of money. Though much progress has been made in these fronts, the government or its successors will have to find a way to use the funds they generate to help ease the modernisation of the relatively backward parts of the economy, on which most of the population depends, without doing anything that could drive big investors away. ​