ARGENTINA: MILEI WINS WITH MORE THAN 10 POINTS OVER MASSA IN THE BALLOT
11.5 points is the difference between Javier Milei and Sergio Massa in the ballot of the Argentine presidential elections.
At 22:00 of this Sunday, November 19, 2023 (Argentina time), with 98.86% of the ballots counted, the official results showed that Javier Milei, of La Libertad Avanza, reached 55.72% of the votes, while Sergio Massa, of the ruling party Unión por la Patria, reached 44.27%.
A comfortable triumph, far from the tight result predicted after the presidential debate of November 12, a meeting in which most analysts considered Massa the winner.
Massa was the first to appear before the voters today after the polls closed. Around 20:00, Argentina time, he accepted that the results were not what he expected. He said he had already called Milei and congratulated him. And he had committed himself to develop a proper transition of government, together with the incumbent president, Alberto Fernandez.
Massa, current Minister of Economy, considered that a political stage was ending for him and invited young people to make the generational change in the Argentine left wing. With this defeat, the Peronist governments of Kirchnerist style, which have dominated the Argentine governments in the last 20 years, come to an end, except for the intermediate period of the right-wing Mauricio Macri.
Massa’s speech, in general, was conciliatory. In it he highlighted the good democratic health of the country. However, one phrase of his was particularly striking: “From tomorrow, the task of giving certainties, of transmitting guarantees about the political, social and economic functioning of Argentina is the responsibility of the new president. We expect him to do so”.
The change of mandate will take place on December 10, but, with this statement, does the Fernández government, of which Massa is one of the main ministers, want to disassociate itself from its responsibility for the economic conditions in which it leaves Argentina?
A couple of hours later, Milei had some answers to the doubt that was generated.
JAVIER, ARE YOU PRESIDENT, YES OR NO?
At 21:55, Argentina time, Javier Milei appeared outside the Libertador Hotel, on Córdoba Avenue, in Buenos Aires, in front of thousands of supporters. Before he started his speech, a person from the euphoric audience shouted at him: “Javier, are you President, yes or no? “It looks like yes”, was the answer of a visibly happy Milei.
Before the presentation there was uncertainty about the tone and content of the message: would it be a campaign-style one, with Milei unleashed, aggressive, mocking, ‘crazy’, that is to say, would he present himself with the image that made him known and attractive among the Argentine electorate? The question was important because of the reaction that international markets may have to a president-elect who in his campaign offered to dollarize, close the Central Bank, close ministries, privatize state-owned companies. What would be his position regarding the onerous debts that the Peronist government assumed with institutions such as the IMF, a government that more than once Milei called a “thief”?
The president-elect’s first speech had a measured tone. As required by the situation.
“Today begins the reconstruction of Argentina”, said Milei at the beginning of his speech, which lasted 17 minutes.
After thanking his co-idealists, he highlighted the support he received from former President Mauricio Macri and former presidential candidate Patricia Bullrich, who “selflessly put their body to defend the change that Argentina needs”, he said. During the campaign, Bullrich and Milei had strong discussions.
Milei said that “here ends the model of the impoverishing state, of the state as a booty to be shared by politicians and their friends”. Instead, he assured, “we will embrace again the ideas of freedom, the ideas of Alberdi, that is to say, the ideas of our founding fathers, who made our country a world power”.
The president-elect assured that his mandate will be based on three premises. The first, he explained is to have a limited government. “But, listen to me carefully: a government that fulfills to the letter the commitments it has made. He seemed to respond in this way to Massa’s phrase, who a couple of hours before had said that the one responsible for giving certainties to the world, from now on, is Milei.
The other two premises are: free market and respect for private property.
And when faced with the doubt of whether the current government of Fernández and Massa would like to disassociate itself from the conditions in which Argentina is left, Milei made a point: “I ask the government to be responsible. That they take responsibility for their term of office until December 10. Once that mandate is over, we will start to change this tragic reality”.
NO GRADUALISM
Milei anticipated that the changes will not be simple, as the situation of the South American giant is not. The president-elect himself described Argentina’s main problems as “monumental”: inflation, economic stagnation, unemployment, insecurity, poverty and indigence.
“Argentina’s situation is critical and the changes to be made are drastic. There is no room for gradualism, for lukewarmness, for half measures. If we do not move forward quickly with structural changes, we are heading for the worst crisis in our history”.
MILEI ‘PERONIST’
In his more conciliatory version, Milei invited “to join the change” to all those who wish to do so. “I am convinced that what unites us is more important than what separates us, and that will make us become a power again,” he said.
It was then that, anticipating possible resistance to his presidential decisions, Milei became a Peronist for a moment. “We know that there are people who will resist. To all of them I say one thing: within the law everything, outside the law nothing”. This is a historic phrase of Juan Domingo Perón, a slogan that was key in the political movement that drove the return to power of the influential leader, back in 1972.
“In this new Argentina there is no place for the violent, for those who violate the law to defend their privileges”, concluded Milei.
THE PROMISE
To conclude his victory speech, the candidate of La Libertad Avanza made predictions: “Argentina has a future. But that future exists if it is liberal”, said Milei. “We are not here to invent anything. We come to do the things that history has proven to work. As Argentina did in the 19th century, as countries like Ireland are doing now. In 35 years we will be a world power again”.
The speech was well read, very measured. There was hardly any room for improvisation. At the end, while the people shouted “Peluca Presidente”, Milei allowed himself to shout, three times, “Long live freedom, dammit!”.
And a party began.
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