“I am from a vertiginous country where the lottery is the main part of reality“. Jorge Luis Borges wrote in 1940 ‘The Babylonian lottery’, in which he imagines a civilization governed by chance.” Like all the men of Babylon, I have been a proconsul; like everyone, slave; I have also known omnipotence, shame, prisons, “says the protagonist at the beginning of the story. Eighty-one years later, and in a more modest but no less disturbing way, the deputy of far right Javier Milei decided to draw his salary as a legislator every month. The stir was immediate. Almost 950,000 Argentines decided to participate in the online raffle with the hope of taking the almost 1,700 euros of the parliamentary allowance. The result should be known this Wednesday in the midst of a wave of contagions of the omicron variant and a blazing heat that, as rarely, melts the cities.
The number of people who decided to participate in the game is not explained by a sudden gambling vocation but rather as a sign of social despair. According to the latest official figures, 43.8% of Argentines are poor. 31.3% of this total are between 15 and 29 years old, while almost 40% are in the range of children up to 14 years of age. 52% of young people have not finished secondary school.
Economist, goalkeeper and singer
In this context, the call for applications Milei, an economist who pays cult of extreme orthodoxy, who was once a soccer goalkeeper, heavy metal singer and gained notoriety as an explosive star of television talk shows. He has just assumed his seat on behalf of La Libertad Avanza, a political formation that oscillates between the doctrines of the Austrian Friedrich Hayek and the rhetoric of Vox. Shouting “shitty lefties”, Milei and his family, among them staunch defenders of the last military dictatorship (1976-83), obtained 17% of the votes in the Argentine capital last November.
Milei is not content with raising her voice in Congress. The television and social networks they are still your biggest visibility space. As if it were an audacious dealer, the deputy who wants to blow up the Central Bank has called on society to trust in luck: fate will knock on the door of a lucky man and he will keep his salary.
The Access to Public Information Agency (AAIP), the government body, opened an investigation related to the controversial raffle for alleged violation of data protection personal. Milei’s site that organizes the raffle does not offer details related to the privacy of the information offered by the participants: names, surnames, document number, telephone and email.
The 2023 horizon
Even sectors of the right that belong to Juntos, the coalition of former president Mauricio Macri, expressed their disgust at the way in which Milei modifies the rules of politics. Sabrina Ajmechet wanted to know how she might afford to give up her diet. The exporter responded with his customary anger: “My first campaign promise was to quit my job in the private sector. I was the chief economist of one of the three largest economic groups in Argentina and I quit. I don’t know how many dare to do that. For a philosophical question, I don’t want to make a living by taking money from people by force. I’ll make a living from giving lectures. They pay me a lot more than they would pay you to speak. ”
Milei’s call to fortune is part of her goal set in the 2023 presidential elections and the plan to expand La Libertad is moving forward. He has not deprived himself of pondering the most “ultra” sectors of the macrista coalition, including Patricia Bullrich. The former Security Minister usually looks at herself in two mirrors, those of Margaret Thatcher and Jair Bolsonaro.
The draw has relegated a related episode to the background: the recent establishment of online gambling in the city of Buenos Aires and the Province of Buenos Aires. The electronic game will move in the most populous area of this country regarding one billion euros per year. The platforms will be added to the traditional lotteries, the casinos and the betting in the racetracks, a whole world crossed by the collective desire to save itself through the magic number. Chance is, on the other hand, a great source of state revenue. The bombastic rancor of the political factions find a strong consensus on this issue.
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