Javier Milei, a 53-year-old ultraliberal economist, is leading the polls with around 35% of voting intentions.
Exhausted by over-indebtedness and rising prices, Argentines vote on Sunday October 22, in the first round of the presidential election. Rarely since the return of democracy forty years ago has an election been so uncertain and stressful for Argentina, where inflation reached 138% over one year, a level among the highest in the world.
Javier Milei, a 53-year-old ultraliberal economist, is leading the polls with around 35% of voting intentions. Admirer of Donald Trump, he says “anarcho-capitalist”promises to “tronçonner” the State and denies any human responsibility for climate change.
Sergio Massa, current Minister of the Economy and candidate for the center-left government bloc, is credited with around 30% of the voting intentions. Patricia Bullrich, candidate of the opposition alliance (center-right) and former Minister of Security under liberal President Maurico Macri (2015-2019), ranks third in the polls (26% of voting intentions). Behind them, two candidates, Myriam Bregman (radical left) and Juan Schiaretti (centrist coalition), do not exceed 4%.
Tumble of the national currency
Economic issues are at the heart of the campaign, while the country has 40% poor people. The national currency, the peso, plummeted in two years from 99 to 365 pesos per dollar at the official rate, and to almost 1,000 pesos at the informal rate. To respond to this crisis, Javier Milei defends a “dollarization” project, i.e. the replacement of the national currency with the American currency. A solution decried in a manifesto by 170 economists from various sides as a “mirage” at the perilous social and inflationary cost.
To be elected in the first round, a candidate must obtain at least 45% of the votes, or 40% of the votes but 10% ahead of the runner-up. Otherwise, a second round will take place on November 19. Some 35.8 million voters also renewed half of the deputies and a third of the Senate on Sunday.