When Argentines go to the polls on Sunday Nov. 19 they will have to choose between the fascist Libertarian Javier Milei of the Freedom Advances party (LLA), and Sergio Massa, current finance minister and candidate of the ruling Union for the Fatherland (UxP) coalition. Amidst a profound economic crisis, thanks to IMF, the City of London and Wall Street financial warfare, the country is deeply polarized. With Massa, Argentina’s entry into the BRICS is guaranteed on Jan. 1, 2024. Although the economic program of the “national unity” government he promises to establish remains to be seen, he has vowed to defend the state and the social safety net and services it provides to citizens, while also focusing on regional integration and closer ties with the Global South. The divisiveness in Argentina today cannot continue, he says.
Milei vows he’ll never allow Argentina to join the BRICS (most of its member governments don’t “love freedom,” he argues), and will instead closely ally with the U.S., Israel and the “free world.” A devotee of the fascist Austrian School of economics of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, Milei says the state serves no useful purpose and should be dismantled. Hence the chainsaw he carries around to campaign events to show how he’ll slash the government’s budget. He vows to cut relations with BRICS members Brazil and China, Argentina’s most important trading partners, whose leaders—Lula da Silva and Xi Jinping— he says are “corrupt” and “communist.” Everything will be left to the “market” and the private sector.
The level of polarization was seen last night when Milei and his girlfriend, actress and “influencer” Fátima Flórez, showed up during the intermission before the second act of Puccini’s opera Madama Butterfly, performed at Buenos Aires’s beautiful Teatro Colon opera house. In what was described as an unprecedented incident for the prestigious Colon, while some in the audience recognized Milei and applauded him, as [shown on X,] (https://twitter.com/MarileNeumayer/status/1725681395131994531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1725681395131994531%7Ctwgr%5E63c2dd06c5dc3fb5e677fec66c567c7f2055d851%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.elcordillerano.com.ar%2Fnoticias%2F2023%2F11%2F18%2F175639-milei-fue-abucheado-en-el-teatro-colon-vos-sos-la-dictadura) a larger part of the audience stood up and started loudly chanting “Milei garbage, you are the dictatorship!” (a rhyme in Spanish: “Milei basura, vos sos la dictadura!"). Some members of the orchestra even joined in to play and sing a few bars of the well-known “Peronist march.” The chanting went on for some minutes before the opera could finally resume.
The phrase “you are the dictatorship” refers to Milei’s running mate, Victoria Villarruel, who openly defends the 1976-83 military dictatorship and its brutal repression/torture/death of opponents, and who denies that 30,000 people were disappeared. She demands that those convicted of the dictatorship’s heinous crimes be released from prison because their sentences are “unjust.” Massa, meanwhile, last night put out on X a nice picture of him with his wife and two teenage children, all of whom have recently received death threats and have been given greater police protection. Children, he said, “are the most valuable things one can have in life.… Mili and Toto, our children, give meaning to every step we take, and like every mother and father, we do everything for our children and want to leave them a better Argentina. That’s why I’m here.” Javier Milei is not married. He is the owner of four large dogs—each named after a Hayekian economist, which were cloned from his beloved Mastiff “Conan” that died. He calls the dogs “my children.”
