In just a few months, maybe even weeks, President Javier Milei went from being the \u201cgolden boy\u201d of global politics to just another weakened leader in the complex Argentine political ecosystem. Up until recently, he was deemed infallible and unquestionable by a large section of society, allowing him to express his iconoclastic style while imposing a tough austerity plan without having to pay the political cost. He picked fights with everything and everyone simultaneously and governed by emergency decree, offering his back to Congress and provincial governors. The plan hatched by Milei and Economy Minister Luis \u2018Toto\u2019 Caputo appeared to be working, managing to hammer down inflation while maintaining a supposed budget surplus. Real wages seemed to be recovering while the economy was bouncing, prompting the President to compare rising output with a diver\u2019s flatulence.<\/p>\n
But now, the self-proclaimed first anarcho-capitalist president in world history is under siege. A tough defeat in local elections in Buenos Aires Province laid bare a situation of absolute precariousness, with both markets and the political class testing his resolve. A series of corruption scandals starting with the \u2018$LIBRA\u2019 cryptocurrency fraud, and more recently a kickbacks scheme at the ANDIS national disability agency has put the focus on Milei\u2019s sister, Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei and her closest lieutenants, the Menem cousins. What once seemed like the beginning of a hegemonic period under the Milei siblings is now looking increasingly fragile, particularly as markets begin to shriek ahead of October\u2019s national midterm elections.<\/p>\n
Milei, the far-right outsider, is beginning to look like Chilean President Gabriel Boric, the leftist outsider who has fallen from grace. According to a recent study put together by pollsters AtlasIntel, Milei and Boric are polling almost exactly the same. The Argentine president\u2019s approval rating stands at 42 percent, compared to 41 percent for Boric, while disapproval rises 54 percent for Milei and 56 percent for Boric. When comparing government evaluation, the Chilean fares slightly better than the Argentine, with 34 percent of Chileans deeming Borci\u2019s administration excellent or good, compared with 33 percent of Argentines on their\u00a0 public servants – 51 percent of Chileans have a poor\/very poor consideration of the Boric administration compared to 50 percent of Argentines. Both outsiders came into government with high expectations from their electorates, singing new political songs that resonated with large portions of society. Beyond the statistical coincidence, the real question is whether Milei will become like Boric or if he will be able to escape a state of majority rejection that renders his political project unable to engineer re-election.<\/p>\n
While the polling figures show Boric has had a deeply negative image for at least the past year, Milei\u2019s downward differential is a recent phenomenon. Only for the past three months has the negative spread been widening continuously for the right-winger, who still remains Argentina\u2019s most popular politician. It comes on the heels of the economy effectively stalling – the INDEC national statistics bureau\u2019s EMAE monthly indicator shows, with output peaking in February only to take a descending trend through June, according to the latest data. The deterioration in Milei\u2019s approval ratings also coincides with an acceleration in the pace of devaluation of the peso-dollar exchange rate, which began around July after what appeared to have been a successful partial lifting of currency controls (i.e. \u2018cepo<\/em>\u2019) in April as the market began to doubt the consistency of the policy plan.<\/p>\n After a harrowing defeat in elections in Buenos Aires Province that empowered one of his main political rivals, Governor Axel Kicillof, Milei is looking to regain political momentum. He\u2019s begun to tone down the level of verbal aggression in his public appearances, as evidenced by his nationally televised speech presenting the 2026 budget. The speech was supposedly written by controversial political strategist Santiago Caputo, one of the few winners after the defeat in the ballot box in Buenos Aires Province – the loss has been pinned on Karina\u2019s political operators, the aforementioned Menems and Sebasti\u00e1n Pareja. Not only did Milei not insult anybody and avoid finishing with this classic \u201cLong live freedom, damn it!\u201d, he also promised to work together with Congress and provincial governors. Up until recently he deemed them \u201crats\u201d and \u201cparasites\u201d that inhabited the wicked \u201ccaste.\u201d Acknowledging that his policies were being seen as cruel while his administration lacked empathy, the President said that he would increase social spending, university financing, and funds for the handicapped at a rate higher than inflation. \u201cCaputito,\u201d as the spin doctor is called for his relative young age, seems to have convinced the President to pay attention to focus groups and polling data.<\/p>\n The first responses from the political class haven\u2019t been too encouraging for the libertarians. The lower house Chamber of Deputies blocked his vetoes on financing for public universities and healthcare, while the Senate rejected his veto of automatic disbursements of discretional funds. This means that the opposition grew beyond the usual suspects to include former allies of the Casa Rosada, namely, members of Mauricio Macri\u2019s PRO and representatives responding to provincial governors. They now have the capacity to inflict real political pain on Milei by blocking his policies dictated by emergency decrees.<\/p>\n These political rumblings occur as the President is trying to get his 2026 Budget bill through Congress, a feat he has not achieved previously, mainly thanks to a lack of trying. This time around he\u2019s submitted a bill that effectively includes increases above expected inflation for key areas including education, healthcare, pensioners and retirees, while maintaining a surplus. Unfortunately, many of its fundamental macroeconomic projections seem untenable and unrealistic, starting with the peso-dollar exchange rate which has already topped the figures stipulated for December 2026. Inflation at 10 percent also seems overly optimistic, as does five percent growth. The Casa Rosada will now have to negotiate with the \u201ccaste\u201d it has insulted continuously in order to secure legislative support for its budget, regardless of the results in October\u2019s midterms. Milei has already instructed Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos to include \u2018Toto\u2019 Caputo in the negotiating table, while Lisandro Catal\u00e1n has been promoted to the role of Interior Minister to lead negotiations. He was already in charge of those talks, which hadn\u2019t been going all that well for the government. In an early show of good faith, Catal\u00e1n distributed 12.5 billion pesos to the provinces of Santa F\u00e9, Entre R\u00edos, Misiones, and Chaco. Money talks – at\u00a0 least that\u2019s what the government hopes.<\/p>\n The President will also be personally in charge of the campaign, effectively relegating Karina and her team, much to the enjoyment of Caputo the younger. While projections were completely off for the local elections in Buenos Aires Province, the Milei administration is hoping for a win on October 26. According to the same AtlasIntel poll, La Libertad Avanza leads Peronists by more than four percentage points, 39.8 percent to 35.6 percent. Undecided voters total 7.3 percent, meaning there is more than enough room for the situation to change, while every other party clocked in below four percent. There could be a surprise there, whether it\u2019s from Provincias Unidas, the coalition of governors, or some centrist offshoot, such as Somos Buenos Aires which includes dissident Peronists, UCR Radicals and the Coalici\u00f3n C\u00edvica.<\/p>\n Milei the outsider appears to have achieved what no-one could for the past 20 years: push former presidents Mauricio Macri and Cristina Fern\u00e1ndez de Kirchner into retirement. At least on the surface, with Kicillof winning an early battle, but with the Kirchnerites very much in the game. Macri shouldn\u2019t be fully counted out either, as the \u2018calabrese<\/em>\u2019 always seems to have an ace in his sleeve. He faces his toughest political challenge in the midst of a financial and economic crisis that was unexpected a few months ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n Like most things in Argentina, reactions seem to have been exaggerated in every direction, and real damage has been done to Milei\u2019s political capital, almost for the first time in his presidency. Only time will tell if he\u2019ll be able to recover.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\nrelated news<\/h6>\n<\/p>\n<\/section>\n