Ask around at a meeting of family or friends these days about the general mood about the President Javier Milei administration and the consensus is that it is not good – in line with current polling. Then ask a follow-up question: will you vote for the opposition next year? It’s then that the mumbling begins.
By “opposition,” an ordinary Argentine will interpret that you mean Peronist. The last Peronist administration was the reason Argentines voted for Milei, a maverick, insulting outsider who seemed – and seems – to be in permanent conflict with his own soul. The Alberto Fernández-Cristina Fernández de Kirchner government included a longer-than-advisable pandemic lockdown, rising inflation that peaked at 200 percent a year by the end of their term and crippling infighting that turned governing into a miracle. The Fernández pair eventually brought Sergio Massa into the game as economy minister and eventually their presidential candidate, hoping he would save the sinking ship. He was close but could not.
Much of the public still believes that was a bad horror movie – and they do not want a re-run. The Peronists, however, are committed to playing the same parts.
Milei dreams of facing a Peronist next year, when he seeks re-election. The obvious candidate would be Axel Kicillof, the governor of Buenos Aires Province. To the general public, Kicillof is a Kirchnerite attachment – he was Fernandez de Kirchner’s economy minister and twice her gubernatorial candidate. And his surname starts with a ‘K,’ too.
Next to Fernández de Kirchner, who is jailed under house arrest and banned from running for office, Kicillof is investors’ worst nightmare. The prospects of him standing a chance of winning next year’s election would trigger a wild run on the peso that could complicate the economy next year, just as happened in the run-up to the 2025 midterms (but in a more intense form). Kicillof, who is doing everything to be the nominee but not saying it publicly yet, knows that and even believes it could play to his advantage: if the Milei-led economy turns messy before the election (meaning the peso weakens and inflation heats up) the opposition would have more chance of winning.
Winning, of course, does not secure governance. If he were serious about governing Argentina, Kicillof and his team should start, sooner rather than later, telling Argentines what the Peronists would do differently from their last stint in office. He would also do well to reassure investors that some of the perks they are getting from Milei – such as expatriating their earnings – would remain. But the Kicillof bunch does not seem willing to do that.
Still, his race to the nomination is difficult. His relationship with the Kirchners (Cristina and her son Máximo) is not getting any better. This week, on the fourth anniversary of the day somebody tried to shoot Fernández de Kirchner in the head, Máximo led a rally outside her apartment to say that she will fight for her political rights, toying with the idea of her candidacy. Notably, he got her followers to chant anti-Kicillof slogans, to make sure the governor knows he will not get an easy ride.
This is exactly the type of infighting that ruined Alberto Fernández’s government. If the Peronists cannot deprioritise their differences, even as a weakened Milei creates an opening for victory, the prospects of sound political management if they eventually reach office are next to zero.
Then, of course, there’s Massa, whose main asset seems to be that he can unite the warring factions, like he did during the 2023 presidential campaign (when, given the appalling picture of the economy he was running, he fared surprisingly well). But Massa is Massa. Since his run-off defeat three years ago, he has been missing in action when it comes to the larger public, working in the shadows toward his own eventual nomination (which would be his third), even if some polls show that he might be the easiest runner for Milei to face.
Milei and his political spin doctor Santiago Caputo are praying that the Peronists continue on this path of this same-old horror movie. Anything new would give Argentines an option they don’t have now. Having the bad, the worse and the ugly in front will not save Milei, however, from the fact that he has lost too much credit with the public: recovering it would take more than winning a tight election.
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