Who was Milei’s audience?

In the presidential address marking his first year in office, Javier Milei seemed to make two groups the central focus of his speech: the ‘círculo rojo’ (“red circle”) business establishment and his run-off voters. In both cases, he appealed to the logic of going over the achievements obtained (“a year ago…”), whether verifiable or not, and posing new objectives and challenges for the near and not so near future.

Agents of the economic, financial and business worlds must have taken less note of Milei’s balance of what has been done until now and more of the promises of what he will do. The end of the ‘cepo’ currency and capital controls, the currency shopping-basket, the reduction and decentralisation of taxation, external financing, (via the International Monetary Fund or prívate sources), more austerity and fiscal and monetary rigidity in an electoral year – those were some of the signals sent to those power circles. That is where Milei usually feels the most comfortable.

The other leg is where Milei tends to have the most support – the segment of society which voted for him last year received thanks for the efforts made and the commitment that this time it will be worth it.

Concrete announcements for the common people were lacking but he appealed to the almost religious hope of 2025 proving an economic growth year (logical enough as a rebound from two consecutive years of decline but will it be sustainable in time?), with reduced inflation and the recovery of purchasing power. The magic of the forces of heaven. Or of market forces. We shall see.

The details of the message and the stage setting remain as political trivia. “Twelve apostles” accompanying Milei in the speech read out and recorded in the Salón Blanco of the Casa Rosada: the explicit stardom of his beloved sister Karina; the preferences for ministers Luis ‘Toto’ Caputo, Patricia Bullrich and Federico Sturzenegger; the absences of the omnipresent spin doctor Santiago Caputo (the speech-writer behind the cameras) and Vice-President Victoria Villarruel (long banished to the Senate); the pot shots at his former presidential rival Sergio Massa (without naming him) while running down Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, newly recrowned leader of the Partido Justicialista.

Nor did he fail to appeal against the caste and the emergence of what he aspires to be a superior concept, “the state party,” grouping those criticised or denigrated in public by Milei and his digital “armed wings,” although later in prívate he negotiates with some of them.

In that sense it is curious that the President should highlight via nationwide broadcast the existence of a crime: “Exactly a year ago we had the nefarious SIRA system, which was exploited by a group of kleptomaniacs to collect bribes on imports.”
Not having denounced this in court, Milei would thus be flouting the duty of any public official: to present evidence and indict. Some of the several lawyers in the Salón Blanco and his Cabinet seated beside him might have noticed that.