For many of Argentina’s voters the choice on 19 November was between the lesser of two evils: Sergio Massa, the minister overseeing an economy with the world’s third-highest inflation rate or Javier Milei, an erratic far-right libertarian outsider whose promises – to shut down the Central Bank, adopt the US dollar as the national currency, cut taxes and spending and privatise state companies and public services – were symbolised by two props: a giant US$100 bill bearing his face and a chainsaw supposedly to trim back the state.

After underperforming in the October first round, Milei won the presidential runoff by a 12-point margin. On a 76.3 per cent turnout and with minimal void and blank votes, 55.7 per cent opted for something new.

Many took the gamble out of despair. Argentina is undergoing a protracted economic crisis, with a devalued currency, low economic activity and zero growth. Economic decline is compounded by widespread corruption. Milei was the only candidate who appeared to take people’s concerns seriously by offering plans to tackle them.

He made a point of placing himself on the side of a hardworking, productive majority that, as he characterised it, is being bled dry by taxes to maintain the privileges of a parasitic and corrupt political ‘caste’. He acted out the anger that many feel. The amateurism that could have detracted from his campaign instead made him appear more authentic. When mainstream politicians joined together to attack or ridicule him, people empathised because they felt equally mistreated by the ruling class.

The first economist to become president, Milei spent the campaign speaking of the shock measures he’d take. Even if these might hurt people, many chose him believing that nothing could be worse than the status quo. Milei’s candidacy was a magnet for young voters who’d never experienced anything but crisis.

This symptom of dysfunction is now Argentina’s next president.

An unusual election season

This was the first time a political outsider has won the presidency in Argentina’s 40 years of democracy. Argentina’s relatively strong political parties had so far been able to dodge the phenomenon seen in many other countries of the region. But after holding the reins for decades, mainstream politicians haven’t solved any of the problems that make people’s lives miserable – and they’ve allowed corruption to grow deep roots, lending credence to the narrative of a privileged political ‘caste’ living at the expense of ‘good people’.

To top it off, in the run-up to the 2023 election, the cornered incumbent party’s candidate encouraged the challenger in the belief he could use him to his advantage. The tactic obviously backfired: Milei’s votes came from all social classes, draining support from both the opposition and governing coalitions.

Having entered politics only in 2021, when he got elected to Congress on the ticket of his just-founded Libertarian Party, Milei was the candidate with most support in the primaries, taking 30 per cent of the vote. He displaced the mainstream centre-right opposition coalition, Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change, JxC), seen until then as the natural successor to the failed administration of the Peronist movement’s current incarnation, the centre-left Unión por la Patria (Union for the Homeland). Massa came third, with the lowest share of the vote ever received by Peronism.

Massa orchestrated a comeback: ahead of the first round, he used large amounts of state resources in what became known as the ‘small cash plan’ (‘plan platita’), aimed at alleviating the short-term effects of uncontrolled inflation through tax cuts and increased subsidies. This combined with scare tactics, as his campaign told voters how much more public services would cost if Milei won and eliminated subsidies. As the economy minister of a failing government, Massa pull off quite a feat, winning the first presidential round with 36.7 per cent of the vote.

But ahead of the runoff, the tactics that had made the minister the unlikely first-round winner had nothing more to offer. A redoubled campaign of fear equating a Milei win with a return to dictatorship, with Massa presenting himself as the standard bearer of democracy, didn’t convince many.

Hunger for change

In backing an opposition candidate, Argentina squarely conformed with a regional trend. Since 2018, in a context of economic hardship, all of Latin America’s incumbents competing in free elections have been defeated regardless of their political hue, with the sole exception of Paraguay’s Colorado Party.

But Argentina has gone further than most, since the opposition that defeated the centre-left government wasn’t a centre-right alternative but an extreme right-wing one.

Liberal or conservative?

Milei’s election was lamented by progressives and celebrated as a victory by the global far right, as reflected in the warm congratulatory messages sent by Donald Trump and Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, among others. But his rise owes more to domestic than international factors.

Milei’s style, including his inclination towards conspiracy theories, certainly resembles that of the likes of Trump and Bolsonaro. The resemblance only became stronger when he made pre-emptive claims of voter fraud. But Milei differs in important ways. He holds libertarian or ultra-liberal ideas that, at least in theory, are more consistent with liberal immigration, drug and reproductive rights policies than with the stances adopted by his nationalist, protectionist and moralistic peers. The market is his compass – he believes the state shouldn’t take on any tasks the market can perform more effectively. He asserts that anything more than a minimal state stifles individual ambition and innovation.

Milei also denies climate change, ridicules identity politics and scorns feminism. He personally holds some conservative views, although he has only politicised them intermittently and opportunistically. They weren’t the focus of his campaign, which centred on economics.

But Milei’s whole package involves an unsettlingly reactionary element. Unlike Trump, he didn’t reach power by hijacking an existing party. And unlike Bolsonaro, he wasn’t endorsed by powerful business, military and religious vested interests. What he did was forge an alliance with the culturally conservative right. His running mate, Victoria Villarruel, represents the conservative backlash against sexual diversity and gender equality policies, along with reappraisal of the murderous military dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983. Given the space, she’ll attempt to roll back hard-won sexual and reproductive rights.

The future of democracy

Elected by a wide margin, Milei no doubt has democratic legitimacy. Run-off votes, however, create artificial majorities. Only 30 per cent of voters – around 23 per cent of the electoral roll – chose Milei in the first round, when they had a whole range of options. Many of the additional votes he received in the runoff were against Massa rather than for him on his own merits.

Milei owes his win largely to his combative message against the political establishment: more people identified with his posture than his ideas. Among those who cared about his ideas, more were convinced by his economic proposals to tackle the crisis than by the culture war his vice-presidential candidate seems intent on. Some didn’t worry about any of this because they didn’t think he’d win, or have the power to implement his ideas if he did.

A major unknown is how Milei will read his victory. Although he has democratic legitimacy, so does the Congress in which he’ll have minimal representation. For the first time in 40 years, the ruling party will have as little 15 per cent of the seats in the House and 10 per cent in the Senate. If Milei gathers the support of the mainstream centre-right, he’ll still be far from even getting a quorum.

In the week since the election, the winning camp seemed in disarray. Milei’s main asset, being an outsider, could now turn against him. Without congressional support, he’d risk the fate that often befalls Latin American presidents in his position: premature departure from office.

But so far he’s shown a surprising level of flexibility and pragmatism. Milei hasn’t been inaugurated yet and has already softened some proposals. He has postponed his most controversial move – dollarisation – forcing its most rigid backers, including a longtime potential economy minister, to step aside.

Milei went from rejecting the ‘caste’ to seeking alliances with it. And if he’s able to show that he’s using them as they tried to use him, he might even pull it off with his supporters.

Hardcore conservatives of Milei’s coalition have already been marginalised, while prominent members of JxC and even some Peronists are likely to be appointed to ministries and other key positions. Rather than the mainstream centre-right shifting rightwards to compete with the far right, as has happened elsewhere, it appears that the mainstream centre-right, having provided support that Milei lacked, might gain the space needed to set the tone of the new administration.

For much of the 20^th century, democracy in Argentina was, as political scientist Guillermo O’Donnell put it, an ‘impossible game’. Peronism was undefeatable in free and fair elections; right-wing parties had no chance of winning, and those who harboured no hope of ever winning became disloyal players, seeking power through other means.

This changed with the 1983 transition to democracy that followed Argentina’s bloodiest dictatorship. Elections are now the only game in town. If an outsider like Milei can be brought into the political fold it would prove the strength of Argentina’s institutions – and perhaps of its political caste. Argentina’s democracy is strong enough to survive this shock.