With 80% of the vote counted in today’s general elections in Argentina, the presidential candidate of the ruling Unity for the Fatherland (UP) coalition Sergio Massa garnered 36% of the vote to 31% for Libertarian madman Javier Milei of the Freedom Advances party (LLA), leaving neoliberal Patricia Bullrich of the Together Let’s Change (Cambiemos) coalition with 24%. Milei’s prediction that he would win outright in the first round fell flat, as the full weight of the Peronist machinery, especially the trade union base, was mobilized behind Massa.
The runoff election will occur Nov. 19, between Massa and Milei. Milei has conceded that he lost out to Massa and says he’ll now work to beat him in November.
In the province of Buenos Aires, the country’s most populous, incumbent Gov. Axel Kiciloff, also of the UP, swept to victory with an impressive 45% of the vote, leaving the Cambiemos and LLA candidates in the dust. As Kiciloff pointed out, 2023 is the 40th anniversary of the 1983 return to democracy in Argentina, when the military junta handed power over to the democratically elected Raul Alfonsín. This year’s election is about ensuring the survival of that democracy, he said, alluding to the fact that Javier Milei, and more so his running mate Victoria Villaruel, is an apologist for that military junta and the genocide it committed against the Argentine people.
