Result falls short of giving Milei a congressional majority but surprises many analysts after series of scandals
The party of Argentina’s far-right president, Javier Milei, has won Sunday’s midterm elections after a campaign in which Donald Trump announced a $40bn bailout for the country and made continued aid conditional on the victory of his Argentinian counterpart.
With more than 95% of ballots counted, La Libertad Avanza secured 40.84% of the nationwide vote, in an election widely seen as a de facto referendum on the self-styled anarcho-capitalist’s nearly two years in power. The Peronist opposition, Fuerza Patria, secured 31.67%.
While the result falls short of giving Milei a congressional majority – which remains with the Peronists – it has surprised Argentinian analysts, given the recent blows to the libertarian’s popularity from corruption allegations involving his sister to the current economic crisis.
Media: “I hope Argentina doesn’t get overrun by Nazis.”
The Nazis and their descendants that fled to Argentina in the 40’s:
Well, if he fails again he can just get another $40bn. I can see why that appeals to the voters…
Milei is not Far right. HeS a libertarian
Edit; I meant libertarian no liberal
I’ll say this, he is smart and sells his opinions as true libertarianism, however now and then, he let’s a peek behind the curtain of his true intentions:
He considers abortion to be a violation of property rights and equates it with theft.
In a 2025 speech at the World Economic Forum, Milei argued there was an “LGBT agenda”, saying, “In its most extreme version, gender ideology simply and plainly constitutes child abuse. They’re pedophiles”.
He intends to eliminate the law that makes comprehensive sex education (CSE) in schools mandatory,[71] which he has linked to brainwashing,[72] and said that students are “hostages of a system of state indoctrination”.
In a country that has long prided itself on its openness to immigrants, Milei’s abrupt measures and declaration that newcomers were bringing “chaos and abuse” to Argentina drew criticism from his political opponents and prompted comparisons to U.S. President Donald Trump.link
While publicly expressing that he is not a defender of the last Argentine military dictatorship, the National Reorganization Process, or the so-called “Dirty War”, he has questioned the estimate of 30,000 said to have disappeared during that period of conflict in multiple occasions.
Milei proposes the “deregulation of the legal market” for weapons and “the protection of its legitimate and responsible use by the citizens”.
Milei clearly plays the hard libertarian booklet while creating a path towards a fascist state.
(Mostly sourced from here:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Javier_Milei)
Libertarian is far right
No it is not. At least not in Argentina. Here the people I know who are aligned with the actual far right only voted for milei because they didn’t want to vote for the left. But they voted him kicking and screaming.
Most libertarians won’t identity as such. Because of how completely and utterly it’s been taken by the far right. The fact that your far right could stomach voting for him, a different sect of far right. As opposed to someone on the left. Your own words betray your knowledge.
That is a very linear way to view things. Past elections were not a single line. They were more like a triangle a highly skewed to the right triangle, but a triangle non the less. The actual far right was heavily siding with dictators.
most libertarians won’t identify as such
He identifies himself as liberal/libertarian
Who is Milieu serving? Who is he dealing austerity to? Who has your economy, like ours served. Why should it be saved? The enemy of your enemy isn’t automatically your friend.
After all, your friend is a fairly buddy buddy with those who would have been dictators. And our own fascist populist for that matter. Sending 40 billion taxpayer dollars your way to prop him up. 40 billion, which even a small segment could help a lot of our own people. 40 billion that your people will likely see less than a fraction of a percent of in the long run. As the usual suspects soak up all the resources as they always have.
Both our countries need basic living affordability. Something austerity and cutting services will never accomplish. It’s all just theater for the wealthy. Even if inflation outright stopped this instant for either of our countries. It would help neither of us. What would help us both? Housing security. Red Vienna style public housing would be a great start. Follow that up with basic food security. Both our countries could do it. But neither will. Because we’re not who they serve.
But yes, if you evaluate everything on a single axis of politics, such as right and left. Things are going to be at best linear. It’s not a useful measurement, really. Just because someone appears slightly less authoritarian doesn’t make them any more right or left.
Libertarian (in the american meaning, the european is the opposite) can be considered far-right, at least in the economic sense. They also frequently hold views on democracy and cultural values that are those of the far-right, and in the american politics, both are strongly intertwined.
It’s tough to imagine a liberal standing with Trump on stage making theatrics like he does.
At the very least he’s populist. And his views for a smaller government go beyond being fiscally conservative. A libertarian seems like a reasonable label but that’s different than a liberal. Why would you say he’s liberal?
also “liberal” isn’t left either. it’s the ideology of capitalism.
To be fair, I think the words liberal, left and capitalism all have different meanings to different groups. And sometimes I think they subtly change meanings while someone is making a single logical point.
What do you mean specifically here?
That a lot of political groups that align themselves as liberals are also in favour of free trade? It reads as if you are also characterising capitalism as a negative so I’m presuming it’s something like enabling the rich and powerful to maximise profits with minimal oversight. Since you are only relating capitalism to liberals I think you’re referring to the far-right rhetoric that they will stop this “capitalism” but ignoring that most traditional political groups thought of as conservative are also pro free trade, and ignoring that these far-right groups haven’t (I would argue) taken any/many actions that target stoping this “capitalism” (for example Trumps tariffs are practically for demanding concessions from other countries and you can see this because their unstable values hurt local industries but help pushing for demands).
Or maybe you simply mean that the left as you use the label is focused on civil liberties without being tied to systems of economics?
I’m sure you have plenty to say about what I wrote but can you lead with how I was wrong with my assumptions about what you meant?
as someone who actually understands these words, im fiscally conservative.
Liberalism is an upgrade from previous feudalism, but it replaces kings with rich people making laws to cement their power. even though it is meant to provide equality, it only does if private property, like landlords or factory owners is preserved, which is the pivotal point of capitalism.
which does result in exploitation, and inevitably leads to inequality, endless human suffering, and dissatisfaction. but when the public is against the system that favours them powerful, they will pivot to fascism.
Liberalism paints itself as progressive, but will only give symbolic victories. Remember the defund the police and BLM? once liberal politicians got in power, they renamed a street to BLM, and raise police budgets. Symbolic victories.
It’s a pattern that once you see, you can’t unsee.
Let’s run with this. What are some political examples of “left”?
Choose your flavour, democratic socialism is probably the most “centrist” left. it maintains capitalism but ensures a decrease in inequality and eliminating poverty and hunger…
Further left you get more utopian ideologies (some mutually incompatible), Like mutual aid, anarchism, socialism, planned economies… and much munch more.
Some were tried and were successful until the fascists or CIA intervened. Look at operation condor, the closest thing to an anarchic state is DAANES, which is a feminist federalist state which the mainstream media completely ignores and is fighting for its life in a war against NATO.
the reason we don’t usually hear about the left, is because anything left of liberalism tends to get murdered by the CIA. even today, Mandami is being threatened with deportation despite being an American citizen for being a socialist and leading the polls.
Sorry. Language issue. I meant libertarian
No worries. I edited my reply to put both words on the same sentence to help if that was the issue.
I did wonder about this a bit though. He is often framed in media as far right but unlike Trump or Farage he doesn’t seem to be so loud with anti-immigrant statements in the same sort of demonising way. Eventually I found this and I’m curious how wrong or right you think it is:
https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2024C37/
Here’s some (biased) quotes that I think make it seem like the far right label is reasonable but I’m sill pretty ignorant myself (and sorry that the vocabulary is different, it was a pain for me so I’m guessing it’s not perfect for you):
Milei cultivates a populist political style and espouses a libertarian-authoritarian ideology that is on the far right of the national political spectrum. His success as a politician can be attributed to a mix of national and international factors: He is both a product of the supply and demand within his country’s political arena and a part of the rising global radical right.
Milei is a proponent of anarcho-capitalism, which was founded in the 1950s in the U.S. by Murray Rothbard. In the early 1990s, Rothbard argued that libertarian ideas needed an active and aggressive strategy to gain majority support in the U.S. and be politically viable. He, therefore, advocated right-wing populism, the programmatic core of which is at the heart of Milei’s discourse. Rothbard proposed an “outreach strategy” in which libertarians would ally themselves with paleoconservatives and traditionalists while making certain ideological compromises, such as adopting a socially conservative agenda – an ideological shift that is visible in Milei’s discourse development. According to Rothbard, this new broad right-wing populist movement should be led by a charismatic presidential candidate whom all right-wing anti-establishment forces would enthusiastically support.
In typical populist style, Milei blames “the caste”, as he calls the political elite, for all of Argentina’s ills, describing its members are “parasites” that feed off the country’s wealth. He claims to despise politics, regarding it as a “dirty business”. Milei does not acknowledge the factual inequality among people due to the double contingency of social origin and the personal talent conditioned by it. Instead, he assumes a theoretical equality of origin, which should not be confused with equality of value. Thus, Milei views political and legal systems not as enabling frameworks that include equalisation mechanisms such as rules to prevent oligopolies, but merely as constraints on the free development of individuals and the market. In this regard, he sees redistribution as a source of injustice. Consequently, he categorically rejects approaches to affirmative action or positive discrimination, the protection of minorities and social policy.
Milei’s ultra-liberal stance, evident in his advocacy for allowing the sale of one’s own organs under market conditions (“My first property is my body; why shouldn’t I be able to dispose of it?”), quickly reaches its limits when it comes to the self-determination of pregnant individuals. Together with his vice-president, Victoria Villarruel, he campaigns for the repeal of the legalisation of abortion approved by Congress in 2020. Milei considers abortion to be “murder between relatives”, which should be subject to particularly severe punishment.
Milei believes that the lack of gender equality is an invention of the left
Milei tends to relativise the crimes committed by the Argentine military dictatorship (1976–1983). He admits that there were excesses in the “war against subversion”; however, he denies the systematic nature of the human rights violations committed (kidnappings, torture, assassinations, and disappearances)
But Milei’s mission is backward-looking. According to the 2023 electoral programme, the declared aim of his LLA alliance is to use liberal policies to return Argentina to the economically, politically, culturally and socially prosperous country it was supposedly (as the first world power) at the beginning of the 20th century – a time, incidentally, when universal and secret suffrage did not yet exist. This topos of a glorified past, which is reminiscent of the “Make America Great Again” sentiment, is central to Milei’s rhetoric and typically characterises the radical right
