2023-11-19 23:36:07
His opponent, the centrist Minister of the Economy, officially recognized his defeat on Sunday evening. Javier Milei, 53, “is the president that the majority of Argentines have elected for the next four years,” declared Sergio Massa, who came first in the first round on October 22. He indicated, in front of his supporters gathered at his campaign headquarters in Buenos Aires, that he had called Javier Milei to “congratulate him and wish him good luck”.
Read also: Presidential election in Argentina: “Please, for democracy, do not vote for Javier Milei”
Congratulations from Trump and Bolsonaro
Brazilian President Lula wished “good luck and success” to the new Argentine government, in a message on the social network X in which he did not mention the winner of Sunday’s elections, Javier Milei. “Argentina is a great country that deserves all our respect. Brazil will always be available to work with our Argentine brothers,” wrote Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Democracy is the voice of the people, and it must always be respected. My congratulations to Argentine institutions for conducting the electoral process and to the Argentine people who participated in the electoral day in an orderly and peaceful manner.
I wish the new government good luck and success. A…
— Lula (@LulaOficial) November 19, 2023
The United States “congratulates the president-elect of Argentina,” declared Secretary of State Antony Blinken, welcoming “the strong participation and the peaceful conduct of the vote.” This election is a “testimony to Argentina’s electoral and democratic institutions,” Antony Blinken said in a statement, adding that the United States “looks forward to working with President-elect Milei and his government on shared priorities.” .
Former US President Donald Trump congratulated him with great enthusiasm. “I am very proud of you. You are going to transform your country and make Argentina a great country once more,” he wrote on his social network Truth Social, before the publication of the official results.
For former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, “hope shines once more in South America.” On X, he added that he hoped that “good winds would reach the United States and Brazil” so that “honesty, progress and freedom return.”
– Congratulations to the Argentine people for their victory with @JMilei . Hope shines once more in South America.
– May these good winds reach the United States and Brazil so that honesty, progress and freedom return to all of us.
– Jair Bolsonaro.
— Jair M. Bolsonaro (@jairbolsonaro) November 19, 2023
A not so close duel
The extent of the gap is surprising: pollsters had in recent weeks given a slight advantage to Milei, but many analysts predicted a result that would be decided “by the vote”, in a tense and undecided election like rarely in the 40 years since the return of democracy.
In the end, the “outsider” who promised to free the “parasitic political caste”, the Peronist and liberal governments succeeding one another for 20 years, overthrew Argentine politics with a small tidal wave, to the point of being flush with it. -bold Argentinians exhausted by an economy on its knees.
Two opposing visions
The approximately 36 million Argentines have decided between two antagonistic projects for the future. On one side, Massa, accomplished politician, minister of the economy for 16 months of a Peronist executive (center left) from which he had distanced himself. And which promised a “government of national unity”, and a gradual economic recovery, preserving the welfare state, crucial in Argentine culture.
Facing him, Javier Milei, an “anarcho-capitalist” economist as he describes himself, a TV polemicist who entered politics two years ago. Defendant once morest the “parasitic caste”, determined to “cut apart” the “enemy state” and to dollarize the economy, leaving the Argentine peso to die a beautiful death.
In the middle, Argentines who went “from crisis to crisis, and on the verge of a nervous breakdown,” summarized Ana Iparraguirre, political scientist at the GBAO Strategies firm. Exhausted by prices that climb from month to month, even from week to week, when wages fall, including the minimum wage at 146,000 pesos ($400).
“We must vote for the least worst,” resigned Maria Paz Ventura, a 26-year-old doctor. “A lot of people are afraid of (Milei), but the way we are, a change wouldn’t hurt us. You have to bet!”
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