Only a month after NZ.
from the Financial Times
Radical libertarian Javier Milei victorious in Argentinan presidential election
Javier Milei, a radical libertarian economist and first-term congressman, has won a decisive victory in Argentina’s presidential election, vowing “drastic” changes to the country’s economic strategy amid its worst crisis in two decades.
Milei won 55.8 per cent of the vote, against 44.2 per cent for economy minister Sergio Massa of the centre-left Peronist government, with more than 99 per cent of votes counted. “Today is the end of Argentina’s decline,” Milei told a crowd of supporters at the Libertador Hotel in Buenos Aires on Sunday. “Today is the end of the model of an omnipresent state that impoverishes Argentines.”
He pledged swift reforms to the country’s fragile economy. “I want you to understand that Argentina is in a critical situation. The changes our country needs are drastic. There is no room for gradualism.” Massa announced that he had called Milei to concede before the official results were published, adding that he had promised to maintain the “economic, social, political and institutional functioning of Argentina” ahead of Milei’s December 10 inauguration. Milei’s campaign centred on a pledge to take a “chainsaw” to the state — slashing spending by up to 15 per cent of gross domestic product — and to dollarise the economy to stamp out inflation. Argentina’s annual price rises hit 142.7 per cent in October.
After the results were announced, thousands of Milei’s supporters filled the area surrounding Buenos Aires’ iconic Obelisk monument. “I’ve been waiting for this all my life: no more Peronists, no more thieving, no more lies,” said Leonardo Estarone, a 57-year-old physiotherapist who was banging a drum in the street. “My children will get to live in a free country.”