Even Javier Milei was surprised by his unexpected victory in Argentina’s national midterm elections, as he admitted in an interview the following day. Beforehand, it felt as if he was down and out, with many predicting he was finished politically as the peso-dollar exchange rate continued to climb higher, even with the full support of the US government. What was particularly shocking last weekend was the victory in Buenos Aires Province – dubbed the “mother of all battles” – which came after Diego Santilli had to come off the bench to replace José Luis Espert who, it was shown, had received financing from a suspected drug-trafficker and forced to resign his candidacy. Governor Axel Kicillof had achieved a crushing win over Milei’s candidates just two months earlier in local provincial elections and the expectation was the libertarians would eat into that lead, but still lose by several percentage points. Instead, winning Buenos Aires Province allowed Milei to consolidate a national victory that once again hands him a popular mandate to deliver on his campaign promise to “make Argentina great again.” The ball is once again in their court.
As the dust settled, analysts sought to identify the underlying forces behind the solid victory.
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