This is the message now being openly discussed, including in the media, by members of Argentina’s President Javier Milei’s inner circle, including prominent business leaders: The chances of Milei’s reelection in 2027 are looking increasingly dim unless the economic debacle his Austrian School of economic fascism has produced can be reversed, which is unlikely. As London’s The Economist put it [on May 5, the stakes in this election, scheduled for October next year, “are extreme.”
The most recent polls show Milei’s approval rating at 36%, the lowest of his term in office and well below those of potential rivals, chief among which is Buenos Aires province’s Peronist Governor Axel Kiciloff. Milei’s destruction of Argentina’s physical economy, which is even more dramatic than what British asset Jose Martínez de Hoz did as Finance Minister in the 1976-83 military junta, is referred to as “industry-cide.” Since December 2023, when Milei took office, his policies have forced the closure of 24,000 companies, about 30 a day, and have lost between 200,000 and 222,000 jobs. Poverty and hunger in the nation that is one of the world’s premier food producers are very visible.
So the search is on for some alternative “centrist” neoliberal candidate who lacks Milei’s mental instability and paranoia but would have to be able to defeat a Kicillof or another Peronist or even leftist candidate. The idea that a “nicer” version of Milei, with the same neoliberal policies, would be attractive under the current conditions of economic and social breakdown is a fantasy.
