His legions of admirers call him “the madman” and “the wig” because of his ferocity and his unruly mop of hair, while he describes himself as “the lion”. He believes sex education is a Marxist plot to destroy the family, considers his cloned dogs his “four-legged children” and has raised the possibility of people being allowed to sell their own vital organs.
His name is Javier Milei, the next president of Argentina.
A few years ago, Mr. Milei was a television talking head who attracted many viewers with his speeches against government spending and the political class. At the time, and until just a few months ago, virtually no political pundits thought he had a real chance of becoming president of South America’s second-largest economy.
But Javier Milei, a 53-year-old economist, has shaken Argentina’s political establishment and inserted himself into what has long been a two-party system by rallying a groundswell of support with his prescriptions for draconian measures to curb the rise of inflation and pledging to crusade against the rise of socialism in society.
A libertarian anarchocapitalist
At the heart of his economic plan for Argentina is a proposal to replace the local currency, the peso, with the US dollar. He has repeatedly said that the only way to end the scourge of inflation, which has topped 140 percent, is to stop politicians from continuing to print money. He therefore plans to abolish the Central Bank.
The libertarianism of Mr. Milei, who describes himself as “anarchocapitalist,” is new for Argentina. He has spoken out in favor of relaxing the country’s labor laws and championed a vision of significantly smaller government to spur economic growth. This involves cutting half of government ministries, including health and education. A symbol of the deep cuts he defends, he has sometimes campaigned with a chainsaw in his hand.
Reducing the size of the state goes hand in hand with his calls for purging the “political caste” from Argentina’s government, which resembles former US President Donald Trump’s slogan to “drain the swamp” of order established in the United States. Mr. Milei has often drawn comparisons to Mr. Trump, a leader he openly admires.
Before coming to the public eye, Mr. Milei was chief economist at Corporación America, one of Argentina’s largest business conglomerates which manages, among other things, most of the country’s airports. He worked there until 2021, when he won his MP seat.
A cultural warrior
Javier Milei considers himself not only a right-wing politician, but also a cultural warrior on a mission to disrupt Argentine society. Some of his positions appear to resonate with more conservative Republicans in the United States, while his fiery, profanity-laden rhetoric has already propelled him to the forefront in the global culture war that sometimes overwhelms political discourse in the United States, Neighboring Brazil and elsewhere.
Mr. Milei opposes feminist policies and abortion, which Argentina legalized in recent years, and has proposed a plebiscite to repeal the law. He also rejects the idea that humans can play a role in climate change. In a television appearance, he denounced Pope Francis, who is Argentine, as a “fool” who advocates for social justice. He also called the head of the Roman Catholic Church “the representative of evil on Earth.”
In the same vein as Mr. Trump’s slogan, ” Make America Great Again (“Make America Great Again”), Mr. Milei said he would return the country to a time of greatness.
“Argentina will regain the place in the world that it should never have lost,” the president-elect proclaimed during a victory rally on Sunday.
His personal life
The son of a passenger transport businessman and a housewife, the economist doesn’t like to talk much about his childhood and says his early years were marked by a strained relationship with his father.
Young Javier Milei played in a Rolling Stones tribute band and was a goalkeeper in the youth divisions of the Chacarita soccer club. But he decided to leave soccer during the hyperinflation period of the late 1980s to study economics.
Today, the only member of his family with whom he maintains a close relationship is his sister, Karina Milei, who managed his campaign. He calls her “the boss” and has repeatedly called her the architect of his rise to power.
In his repeated television appearances, Mr. Milei did not only talk about economics and politics. He also delved into his personal life and once presented himself as an expert on tantric sex, openly discussing his repeated participation in group sex and giving advice.
For much of his adult life, Mr. Milei did not have a serious romantic partner and he is not known for having friends. After months of saying he didn’t have time to date, he began a relationship in July with actress and artist Fátima Flórez. She is known for her impersonations of Vice President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who served as president from 2007 to 2015.
Mr. Milei had a deep bond with his English mastiff, Conan, who has now passed away. He now has at least four others believed to have been cloned using Conan’s DNA, all named after Economists.
Despite the nickname “wig”, her hair is real.