If you were an alien and watched The Chosen, an epic TV series about the life of Jesus whose fifth season is airing in the run-up to Easter, you could either believe that the main character was the Messiah sent by God to save mankind or an erratic bandit who had it coming with the authorities. The truth does not seem to lie anywhere in the middle.
The road from Messiah to pariah can be dangerously fast. President Javier Milei has enjoyed biblical parables during his meteoric rise to the country’s highest political office. He has notably likened his sister Karina to Moses and constantly appeals to “the forces of heaven” to help him in his fight to reform Argentina.
It is uncertain whether most Argentines have ever considered Milei anywhere close to a deity. But his job here, nevertheless, is much more terrestrial: lowering inflation. Price increases, if we are to consider the data released this week, are resisting, refusing to fall below a certain point, which is still too high for a country that hopes to be normal. This is impacting Milei’s approval ratings – a problem Jesus didn’t have to care about.
In Argentina, the political establishment is smelling blood. After a first year of submission to Milei’s will, the mood has changed in Congress. In the first half of 2024, legislators passed a massive piece of legislation for Milei, the ‘Ley de Bases’ omnibus act. In the second half of 2024, they let the President get away with vetoes and emergency decrees galore. In this first half of 2025 though, they are starting to set tougher boundaries.
Earlier this month, the Senate overwhelmingly rejected Milei’s Supreme Court nominees, whom the President had attempted to appoint by decree during the congressional summer break. This week, the Chamber of Deputies voted to create a special committee to investigate the ‘$LIBRA’ crypto-token scam, which directly involves the President and his inner circle. Legislators who had until now been cooperative or aloof toward confrontation with Milei are changing their tune, in line with what they hear from their constituencies.
It is still far from a debacle for the Milei administration. The deputies summoned for April 22 three top government officials to explain $LIBRA – Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos, Economy Minister Luis Caputo and Justice Minister Mariano Cúneo Libarona – but did not land their cannonballs on the President’s inner circle: sister Karina Milei, political advisor Santiago Caputo, and spokesman Manuel Adorni. The insights deputies might get about the scandal from outside these latter three people will likely be irrelevant, but the opposition in Congress is letting the government know that they will not let the issue go away anytime soon.
Markets are also smelling blood. The US$20-billion agreement with the International Monetary Fund is now a reality, but after the announcement, the government will have to show that it can plan for the next three years, rather than the next three months. Milei is walking a thin line between his most immediate political need – keeping the financial and exchange fronts stable, even if inconsistently – until Argentines vote in October and showing investors that his government will, once and for all, be as libertarian as it claims and make the price of the peso vis-à-vis the US dollar relate to market forces – while lifting the capital controls in the process.
Making good on his promise to Argentines would make Milei look like a fraud to investors, while satisfying investors would ruin his reputation among voters. Given the choice, any politician would pick the former, at least in the short term. Milei is no exception.
But the two sides of the equation feed into each other. Milei is right to believe that the October 26 elections are important, but the 2027 presidential race is even more important. A condition for a good 2027 is that the economy is sound in the medium to long term, rather than in the pure present. And investor confidence is sine qua non for that.
Political short-sightedness can ruin the best intentions. In the Buenos Aires City local elections on May 18, for instance, the government is fielding Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni, one of its most prominent figures. It is a risky and unnecessary gamble that could go wrong. Even if it goes well – meaning that Adorni wins a highly fragmented election – it would not change the structural political equation of the ruling La Libertad Avanza party. A few extra seats in a City Assembly – whose hottest job is to hand out construction permits – is unlikely to make Argentina great again.
You don’t need to watch The Chosen to know that Jesus too could easily have escaped crucifixion and gained short-term wins – only that he would have missed building a 2,000-year-plus religious empire.
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