The Argentine election
Less is at stake than it may appear
The election choices are terrible. In the words of an Argentine citizen, “You can vote for the fellow you think will screw it up, or you can vote for the guy who just screwed it all up.” The former feels like a shot in the dark, and involves voting for someone who takes extreme positions and whose character seems unsuited for high executive office. Or you can throw democratic accountability out the window, and vote the guy who actually screwed things up. Argentina’s crisis, remember, wasn’t caused by Covid or external shocks—it’s purely home-grown.
One reason to vote for Massa is the fear that the Peronists will stoke social unrest if Milei wins. But that would be voting under extortion. “Nice country you got here, shame if anything should happen to it.”
Another reason to vote for Massa is the fear that Milei will be a disaster, which will open the door for the Kirchners—or someone more radical—to return in 2027. It’s not a terrible reason to vote for the Peronist. But that is voting out of fear.
A reason to vote for Milei, as stated to me by a left-wing Argentine voter, is that he’ll “highten the contradictions” in the Marxist sense, opening the way for real reform. But that feels like voting for crisis. Who wants to vote for a crisis?
It’s an awful choice to have to make.
Low enthusiasm
Argentines don’t seem particularly enthusiastic about the choices in front of them.
Javier Milei is not Donald Trump on many levels, and one of the differences is that Milei lacks Trump’s uncanny ability to drive turnout. Love him or hate him, Trump inspired passion. The 2020 election saw record turnout, higher than any seen since the passage of the 19th Amendment.
Love him or hate him, Javier Milei does not seem to inspire. Turnout hit a record low. For someone who’s supposed superpower is giving disaffected people something to vote for, he really hasn’t yet brought many of them back into politics.
I was in Argentina for the 2019 election. In speech, people treated it as a monumental. When it became clear that the Peronists had won, random people on the subway said to us, on multiple occasions, “It’s the end of the world” or words to that effect. Later that night, downtown, we wandered streets alive with people celebrating so hard that I really expected them to start tipping over cars and setting them on fire, a la Vancouver after a Stanley Cup victory.
But the country didn’t vote like the election was that important. Turnout in the general just matched the 2015 election.
And this time, in 2023, it was way down, back to 2007 levels.
Two things are similar about 2019 and 2023. First, both elections feel monumental. The “vibes” are strong. Second, people aren’t acting like its monumental. Argentines just didn’t turn out to vote in 2019, and so far they aren’t turning out to vote in 2023. They are voting like its 1996 in America, like the outcome really doesn’t matter.
But 2019 really did matter! The vibe was correct! It’s not clear at all how a second-term President Macri would have dealt with the economic mess that he created for himself. But it seems unlikely a second Macri term would have ended in triple-digit inflation and fuel shortages.1
Now Argentina is heading into the third round of its election, counting the PASO as the first round. I don’t think the result matters as much as people think.
Turnout and the second round
Sergio Massa is the incumbent Peronist finance minister, usually with “moderate” appended before the word “Peronist.” Javier Milei is very-much not incumbent firebrand libertarian chainsaw-wielding radical. In the primary, Milei did better than expected and Massa did worse. In the first round of the general, Sergio Massa did better than expected and Javier Milei did worse. Massa scored 36% and Milei received 30%.
Why did Milei do worse than expected? On election day it was clear early on that turnout was falling below expectations. I tweeted the following:
We now know that it was the latter. Milei campaigned with chainsaws and hysteria. He underperformed in the debates. He managed to seem scary and unpresidential. And he had a platform that became increasingly incoherent as time went on: he will dollarize but he won’t, he will slash budgets but nobody will lose their job, but death to the political caste! Meanwhile, the his campaign was a dog’s breakfast of disorganization. In other words, he squandered the momentum he had out of the primary.
The End of the Ordeal
Little has changed since the first round. Massa won the debate. He rope-a-doped Milei: “Yes or no, are you going to eliminate subsidies? Yes or no, are you going to dollarise the economy? Yes or no, are you going to privatize rivers? Yes or no, are you going to eliminate the central bank? Yes or no, are you going to charge for universities?” He then accused Milei of being rejected from a central bank job for mental health issues. He beat Milei up over promises to cut subsidies. He got Milei to admit that crime went down in the B.A. suburb of Tigre when Massa was mayor. Massa even attacked Milei’s criticism of Pope Francis—forcing Milei to apologize— and then beat Milei. up for praising Margaret Thatcher. “To me she is an enemy of Argentina! I defend our sovereignty over the Malvinas!”
To be fair Milei got in a good riposte against that last one: “In ‘74, Cruyff massacred us in a complete wipeout, and for that you’d consider him a terrible footballer? Or what, you should disparage Kylian Mbappé because he scored three goals against us?”2
Moreover, Milei did tone down a lot of his rhetoric in the debate, just as he has on the campaign trail since the primary, albeit in a way that made no sense. “Relax,” he said, “your pensions, public health, social welfare, public education, all fine. What will change then? Politicians will pay for the adjustment.” And he stayed (relatively) calm the entire time, which probably will assuage some voters.
To win, Massa will have to get a lot of Bullrich voters, which won’t be easy given the Peronists’ record. One hope is that the conservatives haven’t fallen in line behind Milei.
The Liberty Party remains an organizational mess—it couldn’t even get enough ballots to the capital’s polling places, although they claim that’s because they fear that the corrupt electoral board might rip them up, or something. (Here is how voting works in Argentina.) Milei got the backing of Patricia Bullrich (the conservative candidate in the first round) and Mauricio Macri (the former president), which helps him. Massa has the formidable Peronist machine behind him, which helps him. On the other hand, Milei’s rise has resurrected some disturbing phoenixes from the past. His running mate, Victoria Villarruel, keeps taking swipes against opponents of the military dictatorship, and Milei supporters have taken to mailing pictures of green Ford Falcons to opposition candidates—the dictatorship’s secret police would drive green Falcons when they came to disappear opponents.
So here’s the conclusion: even though Milei is slightly ahead in the polls, nobody knows what’s going to happen. The Peronists have a big wall to climb and they really have driven the country into a ditch. Milei is playing it as smart as he can but his policies really are legit scary to a lot of people and his personality can be frightening. Moreover, his party is a mess compared to the well-oiled Peronist machine, which is particularly powerful in the Buenos Aires suburbs.
It is hard to imagine Massa winning considering the scale of the economic mess that he has created. But Milei can be scary and his campaign is disorganized. So I’ll predict that Milei wins tomorrow, but honestly, it’s a toss-up.
Still, both candidates will have to move to the center upon taking office: Massa because the current path leads to hyperinflation, Milei because his spending cuts would throw the economy into depression. The PRC and the IMF will need to be placated, regardless of Milei’s fulminations against the first and Massa’s broadsides against the second. There will be strikes, but the Peronists probably won’t try to destabilize the country if Milei wins. (Probably.) In the longer run, anything can happen, but right now I can entire understand why voters might want to sit this one out. It’s a terrible choice that might not mean all that much.
Macri really was responsible for the crisis gripping Argentina that year, since he did not get a grip on budget deficits. It isn’t clear that alternative policies would have worked better, however.
In the same part of the debate, Milei also referenced the great Johan Cruyff, but he screwed up Cruyff’s country: Milei said Cruyff played for Germany. Wat een teringzooi, almost as a big a teringzooi as that actual 1974 match, where Nederland beat the crap out of Argentina 4-0. Cruyff scored two goals and assisted a third.