When ugly ducklings are black swans

The dissident libertarian deputy Lourdes Arrieta “does not have her ducks in a row,” her sister parliamentarian Lilia Lemoine maliciously concluded, playing on a bad hair day for her Mendoza colleague who resorted to an outlandish duckling-adorned headband to restore order in an early official photograph. Lemoine might be more adept at cosplay but this columnist begs to differ – Arrieta does have her ducks in a row precisely for not toeing the party line.

Her “you can’t fire me because I quit” exit from the libertarian caucus last Tuesday is the culmination of a collision course beginning seven weeks ago when half a dozen libertarian deputies visited such notorious death squad leaders from the 1976-1983 military dictatorship as Alfredo Astiz and Victoria Donda’s wicked uncle Adolfo in their Ezeiza Prison cells – what André Gide would have called an “acte gratuit” defying all logic. Gratuitous but not free – Arrieta’s departure from the “forces of heaven” to form her own unipersonal Fuerzas del Cielo-Espacio Liberal space condemns the La Libertad Avanza caucus to battling for second place behind Unión por la Patria in parity with the centre-right PRO (37 deputies each) at a time of extreme tension between those two parties, despite President Javier Milei and his PRO predecessor Mauricio Macri sharing milanesa cutlets at regular intervals.

Within that context the conclusion might seem to be: “It was worse than a crime, it was a mistake” (to quote another Frenchman, Talleyrand, referring to Napoleon’s execution of a young Bourbon pretender) but this column opts for sticking to the underlying principles. Arrieta’s disingenuous claim that she had no idea where she was being taken that day might be a bit of a stretch but she was hitting the nail right on the head when she said: “Impunity for those responsible for crimes against humanity … has nothing to do with the ideals of liberty.” How can the libertarian creed possibly have anything in common with the totalitarian model of a military dictatorship?

This contradiction extends far beyond an incomprehensibly injudicious prison visit to the core of the current government – the winning presidential ticket of the anarcho-capitalist Milei and his choice of a military apologist as his running-mate, Vice-President Victoria Villarruel. Pundits tend to read the evident tensions between Milei and his veep (admitted last week by no less than Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos) in purely personal terms or in the presidential need for a scapegoat for the multiple failures of his puny parliamentary caucuses or as yet another chapter in the long history of differences between presidents and their potential heirs. Yet the very simple question asked by Arrieta demands an answer which none of her colleagues was able to supply in the course of seven weeks, instead hoping that this pebble in the shoe might vanish once the “ugly duckling” had been purged, but it is a contradiction which warrants more analysis.

Indeed, the contradiction between libertarian principles and military dictatorship would seem so deep that last year’s winning presidential ticket would seem impossible to form if both halves were sincere. The strange thing is that both give every appearance of sincerity – there seems no reason to doubt the authenticity of Villarruel’s opinions since her “memoria completa” crusade was swimming against the tide for most of this century while Milei not only minces no words in rubbishing human rights but also translates those words into action by dismantling the corresponding policies and organisations. Yet does Milei’s vehemence banish the contradiction?

One line of defence for Milei against challenges of his liberal credentials might be to argue that “liberal” can mean almost anything and he would have a point. The three most frequent definitions are: a) “willing to respect or accept behaviour or opinions different from one’s own (which does not sound much like Milei), open to new ideas”; b) “relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy which promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy and free enterprise”; and c) “a supporter of policies which are socially progressive and promote social welfare.” The opposite halves of this hemisphere have adopted opposite definitions. North America ticks the c) box – this columnist still remembers the triumphant yell of the elder George Bush: “He used it, the l-word, he used it!” in the 1988 presidential debate when his Democratic rival Michael Dukakis defined himself as a liberal with the Republican convinced that he had won both the debate and the election then and there (and Bush did indeed reach the White House with a 426-111 vote in the electoral college). In these parts b) is favoured with “free enterprise” bulking much larger than the previous three components – indeed the “l-word” is viewed so way out in right field that all too many people see nothing contradictory about liberals backing military dictatorships and hence nothing strange about a laissez-faire libertarian like Milei teaming up with Villarruel.

This duo represents the two most traditional strands of the Argentine right – the pro-Western liberal and the nationalist. Villarruel’s inclination towards the latter has led the Senate Majority Leader José Mayans (Justicialist-Formosa) to lump her in the Peronist fold – for which he was chided by ex-president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner – but there is also a case for saying that Milei is the more Peronist. Milei prefers to define himself as an anarcho-capitalist, a cap which fits him rather better than “libertarian” but perhaps the “monetarist Peronist” label slapped on him by Pablo Gerchunoff fits him even better – as an economist he is an orthodox enough monetarist (even if he has yet to decide in which currency) apart from maintaining Kirchnerite capital controls and in all other aspects, which interest him far less, he is a Carlos Menem Peronist. But no final definition of Milei will be possible until his race is run.

Meanwhile Arrieta has asked a question which is still awaiting an answer.