Libertarian candidate Javier Milei, who will be contesting the November 19 presidential run-off with the Peronist Sergio Massa, has begun offering posts to the left if he reaches government.
"We’ll be having a Human Capital Ministry and in some aspects of those areas those who know best are on the left ... If they can contribute solutions, what do I care what their theories of surplus value might be? Not a hoot," the leader of the far right La Libertad Avanza said in an interview with the channel La Nación+.
Buenos Aires City lawmaker Gabriel Solano, a leader of the Trotskyist Partido Obrero within the Frente de Izquierda y de Trabajadores-Unidad, spurned the initiative.
"It’s absurd opportunism when coming from somebody who insisted throughout the year that the left is filth," he slammed.
On Monday Milei also proposed adding to his future government the conservative Patricia Bullrich, who chairs PRO and was the presidential candidate of the centre-right Juntos por el Cambio coalition last Sunday, finishing third with almost 24 percent of the vote.
"How am I not going to recruit her if she successfully fought crime>" said Milei about the former Security minister of the Mauricio Macri administration (2015-2019).
Milei had accused Bullrich of "planting bombs in kindergartens" during her youthful Peronist militancy in the turbulent 1970s. The ex-candidate took him to court for those statements.
With his discourse against what he calls "the thieving political caste," Milei was the opinion poll favourite for last Sunday’s first round but he only picked up just under 30 percent of the vote, finishing well behind Economy Minister Massa (almost 37 percent).
Re-elected Buenos Aires Province Peronist governor Axel Kicillof, one of Massa’s main allies, was ironic about Milei’s search for alliances.
"Now we have a saccharine, coached Milei, which will not help him either. Offering ministries to (leftist presidential candidate Myriam) Bregman and to Bullrich turns him into a clown after everything he said," he told Radio El Destape.
For his part Massa already started chasing last Sunday the votes of social democratic members of the Unión Cívica Radical wing of the Juntos por el Cambio alliance.
"I want to address those thousands of Radicals who share with us such democratic values as public education and the separation of powers. I will make the greatest of efforts in the next 30 days to win your confidence," he said after finishing on top last Sunday.
He also promised that should he win the presidency, he would convoke a government of national unity.
– TIMES/AFP
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