Election of Javier Milei as Argentina's president

[RF]

I see that the BBC in Britain has reported that a ''far right'' candidate named Javier Milei has won the election to be Argentina's next president by an 11% margin. I'm not quite sure why the BBC describes him as ''far right'' except I suspect that they don't like his politics and that Trump has endorsed him.

Apparently he's for blowing up the national bank for presiding over a 140% inflation rate and wants to have the US dollar as the national currency. He also says that the views of the Falkland islanders should be respected, something which 40 years ago the likes of Galtieri would have had him condemned as a traitor, or probably worse.

I was wondering if any of the contributors to this website from Latin America and particulary Argentina has any thoughts on this, did they vote for him?

[marcelo_malara]

I see that the BBC in Britain has reported that a ''far right'' candidate named Javier Milei has won the election to be Argentina's next president by an 11% margin. I'm not quite sure why the BBC describes him as ''far right'' except I suspect that they don't like his politics and that Trump has endorsed him.

Apparently he's for blowing up the national bank for presiding over a 140% inflation rate and wants to have the US dollar as the national currency. He also says that the views of the Falkland islanders should be respected, something which 40 years ago the likes of Galtieri would have had him condemned as a traitor, or probably worse.

I was wondering if any of the contributors to this website from Latin America and particulary Argentina has any thoughts on this, did they vote for him?

Hi! Yes, I voted him yesterday. He is an economist that only recently has come to politics, been elected to Congress in 2021. Basically his ideas are:

-he despises what he calls the "caste", those people that in Argentina have made of the politics a lasting profession. There are some province governors that have been in office for more that 20 years, with associated privileges and obscure management of its treasury.

-he criticizes the one sided view of the revolutionary movements Argentina (and most of Latin America) suffered back in the 70s. Till now the prevailing view, as told by the leftist governments of most of the last 20 years, was that those leftist guerrillas were almost heroes, when in fact they were plainly murderers that would not hesitate to kill or kidnap.

-Argentina has a lasting inflation, caused by money creation to finance the unending Treasury deficit. To put it in numbers, about 50% of the monetary base is created each year for this. So, his idea is that replacing the national peso by US dollars would disable this possibility for future governments. And if there is no peso, there is no need for a central bank.

There are other ideas, like reducing the state´s size (and so its deficit), opening the economy to the world (imports are closely controlled here).

[RF]

What interests me about this is the idea of using the US Dollar as the currency, as in the past this would have been seen as the country being dominated or owned by the United States as a ''gringo imperialism.''

Are these ideas now dead? Or could they re-surface over time, especially if the economy doesn't pick up?

[marcelo_malara]

What interests me about this is the idea of using the US Dollar as the currency, as in the past this would have been seen as the country being dominated or owned by the United States as a ''gringo imperialism.''

Are these ideas now dead? Or could they re-surface over time, especially if the economy doesn't pick up?

Strangely enough, Argentina being arguably the most anti-yankee country in Latin America, there is a devotion for the dollar that reaches everyone, even those leftist admirers of Che and Castro.