In the coming weeks, President Javier Milei must make a choice that will define his Presidency and his eventual re-election. August 7 is the deadline for political alliances for the October 26 midterm elections to be registered in each province. In the 24 districts, Milei and his political brain – his sister Karina Milei – will have to decide whether La Libertad Avanza runs alone or joins forces with somebody else.
All hints point toward Milei choosing to fly solo, with the notable exception of Buenos Aires Province. This week, his government’s conflict with provincial governors escalated to new highs. Milei cancelled, at the last minute, a scheduled trip to San Miguel de Tucumán to celebrate Independence Day due to the prospect of being left mostly alone with the host, Tucumán Province Governor Osvaldo Jaldo. A year ago, Milei had led 18 governors at the event, which also served for the signing of the “May Pact” decalogue of reformist intentions. Officially, this week’s trip was impeded by thick fog. In an interview the next morning, Milei accused provincial governors of trying to “destroy the government.”
The clash is about money – which in politics means influence. Many governors supported Milei’s reform agenda in Congress last year, hoping to negotiate individual exceptions to the “chainsaw” spending cuts that the President promised and delivered. Now they feel the Milei siblings are not paying them back, either with money or with political alliances.
The governors also sense that the Milei phenomenon is losing steam, a year and a half into office. All polls show that his level of support is exactly as high – or low – as his level of public rejection. He continues to stand on the right side of public opinion because inflation continues to slow down and the economy feels more stable. But the governors who supported him with votes in Congress do not see why they now have to face challenges in their territories from La Libertad Avanza supporters who, in many cases, are also threatening to try to unseat them in 2027. Tucumán’s Jaldo is a good example of that: Milei’s Deputy Cabinet Chief, Lisandro Catalán – one of the officials who led the government’s arduous congressional negotiations last year – is eyeing his own gubernatorial candidacy.
The President appears overconfident – and he arguably has good reasons to be. Nobody predicted he would win in 2023 and few believed he would reach this point in his Presidency, 18 months on, with good levels of popularity after having implemented a massive economic adjustment. Don’t blame the President for taking bold decisions when boldness is exactly what brought him here. Politicians, like humans in general, struggle to accept that what worked in the past might not work in the future.
Milei has built a political career out of doubling down on most of the conflicts he has faced. Most times, this tactic was aligned with his immediate interests. Now, Milei has two political interests ahead: immediately, he needs more seats in Congress to pass further reforms – especially the one he has promised the International Monetary Fund, and the business establishment at large, to deliver: fiscal, pension, and labour. It is difficult to imagine he could do that without support from most provincial governors. Later, he needs his economic programme to have worked well enough to win re-election in 2027.
Wrestling with governors is more likely to hinder than to help these goals. A flying-solo Milei would need to be flawless through 2027 and beyond not to be bitten back by a political establishment that increasingly despises him, primarily because it does not enjoy being humiliated all the time.
Like never before in the past 40-plus years of democracy, Argentine governors are less guided by national party lines than by local agendas. Except maybe for Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof, none of the provincial leaders seem to have presidential ambitions to challenge Milei’s likely re-election attempt in 2027. Of the 24, seven are Peronists, five are Unión Cívica Radical, three are from Mauricio Macri’s PRO and the rest lead heterogeneous local coalitions with no commitment to national political mandates.
This fragmented picture is ideal for a President looking to divide and rule – something Milei did considerably well in 2024, first to get his signature ‘Ley de Bases’ mega-reform passed and then to shield his administration from initiatives that would have harmed his fiscal programme.
At first glance, it looks unwise to force the governors into unity under the premise that an infant ruling party could crush them in October – and again in the long-distance race to 2027. But caution is not in Milei’s playbook and he is showing no sign of budging from that approach.
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