the new president Javier Milei in five videos

Argentina elected its new president on Sunday evening. This is the “anti-system” and “anarcho-capitalist” candidate, Javier Milei, who wins with a 12-point margin.

The ultraliberal economist Javier Milei won the Argentine presidential election on the night of Sunday November 19 to Monday November 20, with 55.95% of the votes, against 44.05% for the Minister of the Economy Sergio Massa. Outside Javier Milei’s campaign headquarters, thousands of supporters chanted two of the candidate’s favorite slogans: “Caste is afraid!” and “Long live freedom, dammit.” Franceinfo presents Javier Milei in five moments.

“Ministry of the Environment, out!”

In a video posted on August 15 on his TikTok account, candidate Javier Milei details what he plans to do with each ministry once elected. In front of him is a board with scratch labels, each label representing one of the current ministries. Javier Milei grabs the first label, that of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports, and tears it off, saying “Out !”. He repeats this gesture for the ministries of Culture, Environment and Development, Women, Science and Technology, Labor, Transport, and Health. When he removes the Ministry of Education label, he says “indoctrination, out!”.

He then indicates the ministries he intends to keep: that of Infrastructure, Economy, Justice, Security, Defense, External Relations and that of the Interior. The ultraliberal also explains that he wants to create a ministry “Human capital” bringing together matters relating to health, work and education. Before concluding with his slogan: “Long live freedom, damn it”.

“Leftists, sons of bitches”

The new Argentine president never minced his words when talking about his political opponents. As early as 2019, during a conference, he notably declared: “Leftists, sons of bitches, tremble”. The ultra-liberal opposes the left, all policies “progressive”to the principles “socialists”. In August, on the Argentinian channel A24, the “anti-system” candidate attacked the “shit leftists”. When the journalist asks him why he calls them that, Javier Milei replies: “Because they are shit. You must not give them a millimeter, if you do, they will use it to destroy you”.

The candidate for the “chainsaw”

During several meetings and rallies, Javier Milei turned on a chainsaw among his supporters, like last September 16 in La Plata.

This symbolizes his “chainsaw plan”. Faced with three-digit inflation (143% over one year), the ultra-liberal candidate explains that he wants “cut back on public spending” with blows of “chain saw” to revive the Argentine economy. In The Economist, he announced that he wanted to reduce public spending by 10% while four out of ten Argentines live below the poverty line. During the first presidential debate, Javier Milei made this promise: “If you give me 20 years, we can be like Germany, and if you give me 35 years, like the United States”.

“Al Capone, a hero”

Javier Milei explained on his TikTok account that he considers the American gangster Al Capone as “a hero”as “a social benefactor”. “He saw a business opportunity, he seized it”, he believes. More broadly, he defends the mafia as when he declared on Chilean television: “Between the mafia and the State, I prefer the mafia. The mafia has codes, the mafia conforms to them, the mafia does not lie”. For him, the State is public enemy number, “it is not the solution but the source of all problems”.

He wears the costume of “General AnCap”

Javier Milei describes himself as an anarcho-capitalist, hence the nickname “AnCap”. In 2019, during a meeting in Buenos Aires, at a comic book fair, he wore a superhero costume in the colors of this movement, in black and yellow, with mask and cape. Yellow symbolizes gold, wealth and black, anarchy, as the new Argentine president explains in a video.

During this meeting, the ultra-liberal Javier Milei declared: “I am General AnCap. I come from Liberland, a country created by the principle of the original appropriation of man. My mission is to kick the ass of the Keynesians and the collectivist sons of bitches”. The libertarian polemicist chose to refer to Liberland because it is a micro-nation of a few square kilometers between Croatia and Serbia, a territory declared “sovereign” by a Czech libertarian politician in 2015.