Potty-mouthed political outsider will head to November runoff with centrist finance minister Sergio Massa

The eccentric far-right populist Javier Milei has failed to win the first round of Argentina’s presidential election, with the centrist finance minister Sergio Massa unexpectedly beating his radical challenger.

Supporters of Milei, a potty-mouthed political outsider described as an Argentinian mashup of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson, had hoped he was heading for a sensational outright victory similar to Bolsonaro’s shock triumph in Brazil in 2018.

  • amenotef@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    1 year ago

    Milei probably has a small resemblance with DT. Maybe just a small percentage, but that is enough to call him a Full DT by the press in the rest of world. It is just cheap press.

    The guy has a lot of cons and pros. But he is not a DT. He is mainly an economist. Not a businessman.

    Argentina as always is a sinking ship with a lot of holes. Every year there are more holes. They still have not found a party that can close those holes. And there were only 3 big parties.

    Perhaps a new party (like the one from Milei) manages to start closing some of those holes. Perhaps they keep opening holes like the current party. Even if you put the best party ever made, it would take 15-30 years maybe more to recover. You have a lot of adults that never worked (legally) and live from the state. It takes time to educate the new generations letting them know that money is not always a free thing that comes without working. (And you cannot tell them “now you have to find a job” in the short term otherwise the country will go violent. Therefore no matter how far right the party is. It always end up adapting to a situation to control the masses that requires socialism).

    Time will tell about what will happen if the same party (probably was the worst government in the past 30 years) wins the election. But nowadays the country is at worst since I was born. 40% poverty (oficial, real is perhaps higher ), 100+% annual inflation (not even the old 20-30% annual). It is probable that the current government will never leave and will stay on power just like it happens in many other countries, like Venezuela. (While it is still a totally different country, we always compare to Venezuela because the current party always liked Venezuela as a role model to follow).

    I hope not! But with 40+% poverty… soon there will not be enough tax payers to cover the costs but maybe hyperinflation puts a stop to the excess of public spending (printing ARS money) to solve any problem.