Argentina’s voters hand Javier Milei a crucial victory in midterm election

By EMMA BUBOLA

The party of Argentina’s budget-slashing president, Javier Milei, won a resounding victory in legislative elections Sunday, a crucial test for his administration that President Donald Trump had said would decide whether the United States extended a financial lifeline to the country.

It was an emphatic win for Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist who has significantly curbed Argentina’s crippling inflation, but whose tenure was recently hit by financial and political turmoil. His party received more than 40% of the vote, showing that despite pain inflicted by his austerity measures, many Argentines are still willing to back his libertarian experiment.

“Today we passed a turning point,” Milei told supporters Sunday night, after coming onstage and singing a campaign song.

“Today begins the building of a great Argentina,” he said.

The victory gives Milei enough support in Congress to prevent his vetoes from being overridden, putting him in a strong position to further his ambitious agenda.

It was also a victory for Trump, who had endorsed Milei and said that a bailout from the United States, in the form of a $20 billion currency swap, was contingent on his success in the midterm elections. Milei is an enthusiastic supporter of Trump and the MAGA movement, and his fortunes are seen by the Trump administration as a way to bolster U.S. influence in South America and counter China’s push into the region.

“It was quite a resounding victory for common sense and pro-U.S. leadership, which Milei very much embodies,” said Andrés Martínez-Fernández, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation focusing on Latin America. It also showed that “there are also very clear benefits to countries that try to ally with the U.S. very proactively,” he said.

Financial markets’ reactions will not become clear until Monday morning, but bond, stock and currency traders seemed likely to respond positively. The Argentine peso strengthened Sunday night in cryptocurrency markets that operate around the clock.

Milei’s supporters were cheering outside the party’s headquarters, where the AC/DC song “Highway to Hell” played and street vendors sold miniatures of Milei holding his trademark chain saw.

“There’s a huge bonanza coming for Argentina,” said Facundo Manuel Campos, 42. “More investments, credit … a normal country.”

Voter turnout was 68%, the lowest in any national election since the return of democracy in 1983. Voting in Argentina is mandatory, but fines for failing to cast a ballot are the equivalent of less than 50 cents.

Milei has won international praise for curbing inflation, which fell from 160% annually when he took office to about 30% this year. That has helped to reduce poverty, while Milei’s fiscal austerity has resulted in a budget surplus and appeased international lenders. In his first year in office, he enjoyed a relatively stable approval rating of about 50%.

But his deep spending cuts have also inflicted acute pain on parts of the population. They have coincided with corruption scandals embroiling Milei’s inner circle, eroding his poll ratings, which fell by about 10 points in recent months. After a scorching defeat for his party, La Libertad Avanza, or Liberty Advances, in provincial elections in Buenos Aires last month, the value of the peso collapsed, leading the Trump administration to offer its financial support.

“It was an unexpected result,” Roberto Nolazco, a political scientist at Argentina’s Catholic University, said of the vote Sunday. “Even for the government.”

For Milei’s supporters, the assistance from the United States was a sign that Argentina was on the road to financial stability.

“Before 2023, my children were thinking of leaving the country,” said Virginia Giménez, 55, who was with her son outside the headquarters of Milei’s party. “But I’m happy to be here tonight, with my son by my side.”

Analysts said the results were due, in part, to a fragmented opposition, which included many of the same leaders repudiated by voters two years ago when they elected Milei, an outsider economist who rose to popularity by criticizing the political class.

​​“People gave him another vote of confidence despite the economic hardships, despite the corruption allegations,” said Mariel Fornoni, a political analyst who runs Management and Fit, a polling company. “And that largely has to do with what alternatives were available.”

Many voters leaving polling places in Buenos Aires on Sunday said they were willing to give Milei more time to implement his agenda. They said they wanted to move on from the high-spending Peronists, followers of the movement begun by the former president Juan Perón, who have presided over economic instability for most of Argentina’s recent history.

After casting his vote Sunday, Francisco De Sousa Dias, 33, said he was not “a big fan” of Milei. “But these guys are worse,” he said of the Peronists. “Perhaps Milei is not the change we need, but it’s a change,” he said.

Though his party had only a small number of legislative seats in the first half of his term, Milei managed to get Congress to approve many of his proposals, at first. More recently, lawmakers have been pushing back, notably by overturning his vetoes of spending increases for universities and health care. Now that will no longer be possible.

Milei says he wants to overhaul labor laws and make contracts more flexible; deepen cuts to the federal government; ease regulations; cut taxes; and streamline bureaucratic procedures to encourage economic activity and boost employment and salaries. He also wants to make it easier to register new companies.