Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Argentines vote in national elections on Sunday amid triple-digit inflation and intense anger over chronic economic crises and corruption, with radical libertarian economist Javier Milei narrowly leading the polls.
Milei, a former television commentator and first-term congressional representative, is running for his La Libertad Avanza party, promising to “take a chainsaw” to the state, cut spending by 15 per cent of GDP and dollarise the economy.
The outsider candidate faces two other key contenders including Sergio Massa, economy minister in the ruling centre-left coalition Unión por la Patria. Massa has promised to stabilise Argentina’s economy while protecting the social safety net created by his populist Peronist movement, which has dominated Argentine politics for the last four decades.
Some 36mn voters will choose between Milei, Massa and Patricia Bullrich, a hardline former security minister from the centre-right opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio, who has pledged to bring “order” to Argentina by cracking down on crime and dismantling the Peronists’ high taxes and currency controls.
Argentina’s pre-election polls are unreliable and an August primary election showed all three candidates within two percentage points of one another. But analysts widely expect Milei to come first and advance to a second-round run-off against either Massa or Bullrich on November 18.
“It is very uncertain,” said Ana Iparraguire, a Buenos Aires-based consultant and partner at Washington strategy firm GBAO. “But it seems like everything we’ve been seeing recently has reinforced Milei’s narrative that the political class is [corrupt] and can’t manage the economy.”
Argentina is suffering its worst economic crisis in two decades, and the final weeks of campaigning have been marked by worsening inflation, which hit an annual 138 per cent in September, and the accelerating decline of the Argentine currency. The peso now stands at a near-record low of around 880 to the dollar on the black market, where Argentines go to convert savings to greenbacks.
GDP is expected to shrink by 2.5 per cent this year, according to the IMF.
Massa’s campaign has also been challenged by several corruption scandals involving the ruling Peronist coalition: recently the chief of staff to the Buenos Aires Province governor Axel Kicillof was forced to resign after being photographed on a luxury yacht in the Mediterranean drinking champagne with a model.
Judicial authorities are investigating allegations that Martín Insaurralde illicitly enriched himself, while a federal prosecutor has indicted him on money laundering charges. Insaurralde’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Polls close in Sunday’s election at 6pm local time (10pm BST), and results will start to be released from 9pm (1am BST).
To win the presidency outright in Sunday’s first round, a candidate needs to get 45 per cent of the vote, or 40 per cent with a ten-point lead over the second-place finisher.
Argentines will also vote for half of the seats in Argentina’s lower house of congress and a third of the senate. The results of the August primary suggest La Libertad Avanza will win only a fraction of seats, and no party will hold a majority in either house.
Three provinces will choose governors, including a closely watched battle in Buenos Aires province, which is home to a third of Argentines.
The Peronists faced bruising defeats at several provincial elections earlier in the year, but are hoping for a second term for Kicillof, a close ally of former Peronist president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Read the full article here
