In this week leading into the Oct. 26 midterm elections, in which a third of Argentina’s Senate and half its Chamber of Deputies are up for re-election, panic is evident in the camp of President Javier Milei. The erratic President’s inner circle has decided he should be kept off the campaign trail altogether. Nor is the panic limited to Milei. Continuous U.S. Treasury interventions in the domestic markets and the announced $20 billion swap line have failed to stem the peso collapse or reassure financial markets, provoking U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to issue another X post today, explaining why Milei is worthy of U.S. intervention to stabilize the economy (see separate report).
According to La Política Online on Oct. 20, the plan is to “reduce to the maximum [Milei’s] public exposure” and avoid interviews, as the last two he gave to relatively friendly reporters showed him to be “defensive, angry,” and nervous. Milei also won’t campaign in the all-important province of Buenos Aires, where he suffered a devastating defeat in the Sept. 7 provincial midterms and where polls now predict a similar defeat Oct. 26.
