Javier Milei receives one last mass bath in Argentina: “The caste is afraid, do you want to scare them a little more?”

Javier Milei, this Monday during his campaign closing event in Buenos Aires. JUAN IGNACIO RONCORONI (EFE)

Some 10,000 people gathered this Monday in the most modern stadium in Buenos Aires. The Movistar Arena is reserved for most of the week for Luis Miguel, but this was not a ranchera night. It was the night of the Argentine extreme right. Javier Milei, the libertarian deputy who went from ranting on television to rising as a third force for the October elections, has been the first presidential candidate to close his campaign for the primaries this Sunday. He sang his rock and roll at each rally, jumped and harangued all over the stage, dedicated insults to the Peronist government and the opposition right. That’s where his show came from. Milei, who conquered the disenchantment of a country in crisis by speaking of kicking out “the political caste”, selling organs, and offering free carrying of arms, dressed as a politician this Monday. He put on a tie, glasses and asked for the vote. “Many don’t like my ways, but this election is not about me. This is about you and the country we want,” he said. “If we don’t change today, the only possible destiny is to become the biggest slum in the world.”

The fifteen polls published in recent weeks give him an average of 20% of the votes for Sunday’s primaries. Milei plays alone while the great opposition coalition of Together for Change decides between a more radical right or another that claims to look to the center, and the ruling Peronism burns its last cartridges flagged behind the current Minister of Economy. None exceeds 25% of the intention to vote and the undecided caress 10%. The campaign has got stuck in the chorus of the economic crisis: what to do with a population where almost 40% live in poverty, with 115% year-on-year inflation, with the peso worth less every day and with reserves in the red while the International Monetary Fund knocks on the door to collect. And Milei, who has spent the last year talking about burning down the Central Bank, dollarizing the economy, or engaging in long sermons on how to reduce the state to a minimum, has put aside hard questions in search of the epic.

“Let them all go, let not a single one remain,” the militancy that waited for him this Monday at the Movistar Arena sang for hours. In Argentina, where a school is held during each election with the jingles that are composed for the campaign, the first success of 2023 is a reissue of 2001. “Que se vayan todos” began to be sung during the corralito crisis, which that year it ended with a worthless currency, 39 deaths in street protests, five presidents in 11 days and unemployment that reached 21.5%. This Monday, Milei made no promises. She sought culprits for a “disaster” that she sees dragging on since the beginning of the 20th century. “Peronists, radicals, the military, and a lot of rejuntas have passed with the sole objective of having the power to enrich themselves at our expense,” she exclaimed. “The candidates of the main parties are the same ones who were in the 2001 catastrophe. Despite the ‘let them all go’, none left, and they multiplied.”

In his speech, only two former presidents were saved: Carlos Menem, who governed from 1989 to 1999 and stopped the inflation time bomb with ultra-liberalism and the parity of the peso with the dollar; and Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), whom he described as an outsider and as an “opportunity to break with the impoverishing system.” In a nod to the great godfather of the coalition with which he competes for votes – and to the former president who took out a loan from the IMF of 44,000 million dollars – Milei affirmed that Macri failed because “the members of the coalition themselves opposed the changes that the country needs. He put himself in the ranks of both: “Today we have a new opportunity, and I don’t want to be tragic, but it may be the last. The third time may be the charm.” It was one of his phrases with the least applause.

Milei hit the stage around 9 p.m. and spoke for less than an hour. Her militants, however, began to surround the stadium from four in the afternoon. She had to register on an official page weeks before and leave all the data to get a ticket, but these ended up being offered at the door to anyone who passed by. Villa Crespo, one of the last fashionable neighborhoods in the city with a bohemian and progressive imprint in the heart of the city, dressed as a libertarian. “Do you think we discuss abortion when we don’t make ends meet?” asked a 22-year-old girl while waiting. “Did you see how Bukele hits the jet politicians? Here they are going to escape before they are caught, but let me dream that at least they are stripped before,” said another 20-year-old boy. “It’s Milei or Ezeiza,” summed up an older woman, in the bar on the corner of the stadium. “My plane missed, but these guys are not going to have anything while the politicians take it all.” Appealing to Ezeiza, the international airport of Buenos Aires, has become another slogan of the militancy. The line of six blocks took more than an hour to enter the compound organized. “They have means, the caste is afraid,” they sang. Until Milei entered, who between the deafening scream, harangued: “They are afraid, do you want to scare them a little more?”

Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS America newsletter and receive all the latest news in the region.

#Javier #Milei #receives #mass #bath #Argentina #caste #afraid #scare