How Milei's 'Thatcherite' economics divided his nation - but won over Trump

60 minutes ago Share Save Ione Wells South America Correspondent Share Save

BBC

Buenos Aires, September 2023. Hundreds of people crowded around to wave flags and film on their phones. The man with unruly hair and sideburns in the centre of them, clad in a black leather jacket, hoisted a roaring chainsaw above his head. This was an election rally taking place in the San Martín area of the Argentine capital a month before the presidential election - and the metaphor was explicit. The candidate Javier Milei believed the state was far too bloated, with annual debts that were bigger than Argentina's entire annual economic output. Rather than 'trimming the fat', as some politicians delicately put it, he said he would take a chainsaw to ministries, subsidies and the ruling political class he derided as "la casta" - the caste.

Getty Images Javier Milei's election rallies featured an unusual prop

Milei had form for stunts. In 2019, he dressed up in a "libertarian superhero" costume, purporting to be from Liberland - a land where no taxes are paid. In 2018, he smashed a piñata of the Central Bank on live television. According to official data, inflation in 2023 topped 211% annually - Milei took office in December of that year. Roughly 40% of the population lived in poverty. Years of high public spending, and a reliance on printing more money and borrowing to cover deficits, had left the country in a cycle of debts and inflation. Yet nearly two years on, the headline figures are vastly different: Argentina recorded its first fiscal surplus in 14 years -the state spending less than it's collecting - and inflation, which had hit triple figures annually, has tumbled to about 36%.