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Javier Milei’s prospects at legislative elections have been boosted after Argentina’s senate approved an electoral reform even as a cryptocurrency scandal raged around the libertarian leader.
Senators voted 43 in favour and 20 against, with six abstentions, to cancel this year’s primary elections. Argentina’s unusual system obliges all parties to hold simultaneous primaries a few months before legislative and presidential polls, acting as an election dress rehearsal that often causes market turmoil.
Milei had argued that the tens of millions of dollars it costs to run the primaries were incompatible with his cost-cutting drive. But analysts said the government would also benefit because Argentina’s fragmented opposition parties would be denied an opportunity to organise themselves ahead of midterm elections in October.
The victory in the senate follows one of Milei’s most difficult weeks during his 14 months in office. The president promoted a memecoin on X on Friday, the value of which surged before collapsing. The coin’s crash triggered accusations of a scam, with Milei’s opponents filing dozens of fraud lawsuits and the leftwing Peronist opposition pledging to launch impeachment proceedings.
The president has denied any wrongdoing, saying he was not “informed about the details” of the memecoin project, although he did meet the people behind it twice.
On Thursday, Milei’s opponents in the senate fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority needed to launch a senate probe into his role in the cryptocurrency uproar.
“The government needs a win at the moment,” said Eugenia Mitchelstein, a politics professor at Argentina’s San Andrés university. “This demonstrates the scandal hasn’t damaged their negotiating strength in congress, at least so far.”
Milei arrived in Washington on Thursday where he met Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, who is also advising US President Donald Trump on government efficiency. The Argentine shared a video in which he presented Musk with a chainsaw, symbolic of the cost-cutting programme he is leading.
Milei and Trump are both due to speak on Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in the US capital.
Polls suggest the memecoin scandal has had limited impact on Milei’s support, even though a large majority of respondents said his role should be investigated.
His approval rating has ticked down just 1 percentage point this week from their most recent measurement in December, to 48.4 per cent, while his rejection rating rose 2 percentage points, to 50 per cent, according to opinion firm Trespuntozero.
Senators also failed to reach a two-thirds majority on a proposal to summon Karina Milei, the president’s sister and chief of staff, for questioning.
She became embroiled in the scandal after La Nación newspaper reported that she took the first meeting with the consultant who later introduced the president to the coin’s creators.
Argentina’s presidential spokesperson declined to comment on the report.
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