Change is the name of the future for Javier Milei. This is the consensus now that the Buenos Aires Province election has killed off the key assumption that the public overwhelmingly backs his economic adjustment programme. Until now, Milei’s has been a single-issue government, working under the notion that a fiscal surplus will fix the country’s entire problems, starting with lowering inflation. The public does not seem to be OK with that anymore.
The government’s immediate reaction may not have grasped the extent of the political tectonic shift and what this means. Argentina’s economy continues to be extremely fragile, the government has not responded consistently to at least two major corruption allegations (the ‘$LIBRA’ cryptocurrency scam that broke out in February and the ANDIS disability agency kickbacks scandal more recently) and the political establishment Milei has repeatedly turned his back on – and insulted along the way – is hungry for revenge.
Presidents, however, always have the upper hand – and Milei does too. Although lukewarm, his initial reaction was extracted from a manual of ordinary politics: appear active and in command, pretend to concede, resort to the gatopardismo axiom that everything changes, nothing changes.
A couple of political action committees manned by Milei’s inner circle, a new interior minister who was already the deputy interior minister in a vacant ministry, a generic invitation to provincial governors to “dialogue” while threatening to veto a funds-distribution bill passed by Congress at the governors’ request – this is far from representing real change.
To cap things off: on Monday, a week after the election debacle, Milei will speak on 'Cadena Nacional' television broadcast to present the 2026 budget – a useless show given his government has been quite happy to work without a Congress-approved budget for the last two years.
The plan to talk to Argentines at primetime about chainsaw-driven fiscal surplus might be counterproductive for his goal of changing the tone of the public conversation and recreating expectations of his administration. Milei needs to offer Argentines a better future. One key question that came from the Buenos Aires Province ballot boxes is whether he has an agenda other than spending cuts and insults.
It would be a shame if Milei does not get his government back on track. His first two years came with a major surprise in his favour: he seems to enjoy being president of Argentina, a country that has burnt the brains – and lives – of many of its leaders. Governing this land is not easy, but Milei seemed to be a man on a mission, fed by conflict and driven by results.
The extreme shock was directly proportional to the narrative investors and pundits alike bought at face value – that things were going according to a plan (or ‘TMAP,’ the acronym ruling party social media fanatics use to defend the administration’s course). The affirmation carries the subtext that there is a plan rather than an accumulation of random events – such as the ones that catapulted Milei to the Casa Rosada in 2023.
Milei promised self-criticism and introspection on election night last weekend, but he ultimately settled for blaming organisational mistakes rather than the core of his political and economic programmes. The provincial branch of the ruling La Libertad Avanza party said in a statement that it had failed to “better explain the reward for the sacrifice that the people of Buenos Aires Province are making” under the President. Mostly a communications problem?
We wrote here a couple of weeks ago that the government needed to concentrate less on October than on the day after, because market and public demands would have shifted immediately – to become more demanding – regardless of the outcome of the vote. The Buenos Aires Province election has simply put that mood shift on the table a bit earlier.
The reset might have to be more substantial than the Milei administration wants to get away with. It will likely include Milei not being the Milei we’ve known up until now. That should not be a source of panic, unless one feared – as many people do – that the single-issue, unidimensional Milei is incapable of correcting course and tone. Can he start building bridges instead of burning them? And is that even part of his nature?
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