For many of Argentina’s voters the choice in the 19 November presidential runoff is between the lesser of two evils: Sergio Massa, economy minister of a government that’s presiding over a once-in-a-generation economic meltdown with a whopping 140-per cent inflation rate, or Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian who admires Donald Trump, wants to shut down the Central Bank and wields a chainsaw in public as a symbol of his willingness to slash the state and eliminate the privileges of what he calls ‘the political caste’. Many will be ruing that it ever came to this.

A peculiar outsider

Argentina had until now avoided the regional trend that has seen political entrepreneurs at the head of new forces gain ground by denouncing traditional politics and mainstream politicians. This was seen in Chile, El Salvador, Honduras and Peru in 2021, Colombia and Costa Rica in 2022, Guatemala in 2023 and twice in Ecuador – in 2021, with Guillermo Lasso, and in 2023 with his recently elected successor, Daniel Noboa.

But now an outsider has a chance in Argentina – and he’s a more eccentric one than most. A post-modern media celebrity, Milei’s performance style is a perfect fit for social media. He doesn’t abide by conventions. He’s easily angered, reacts violently and insults copiously. He rejects any form of political correctness. He’s unapologetically sexist and mocks identity politics.

The founder of a party called ‘Liberty Advances’ (‘La Libertad Avanza’), Milei bangs the drum for ‘anarcho-capitalism’, an ultra-individualistic ideology in which the market has absolute pre-eminence: earlier this year, he described the sale of human organs as ‘just another market’ and refused to condemn the possibility of ‘selling’ children.

To expand his appeal beyond this extreme economic niche he forged an alliance with the culturally conservative right. His running mate, Victoria Villarruel, represents the conservative backlash against abortion – legalised after decades of civil society campaigning in 2020 – and opposition to sexual diversity and gender equality policies, along with reappraisal of the murderous military dictatorship that ruled Argentina between 1976 and 1983.

In the run-up to primary elections held in August, the two mainstream coalitions – the centre-left incumbent, Unión por la Patria (Union for the Homeland, UP), and the centre-right opposition, Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change, JxC) – displayed a notable lack of leadership and engaged in internal squabbles that showed very little empathy for people’s daily struggles. All they had to offer in the face of widespread concerns about inflation and insecurity were the candidacies of the current minister of the economy and a former minister of security. They made it easy for Milei to hold them responsible for decades of corruption, ineffectiveness and failure.

In Milei’s discourse, the hardworking, productive majority is being bled dry by taxation to maintain the privileges of a parasitic and corrupt political ‘caste’. His proposal is deceptively simple: shrink the state to a minimum to destroy the caste that lives off it, and end the privileges of the minority to restore the freedoms of the majority, clearing their way to individual progress.

Milei gained traction among young voters, particularly young men, reaching them on TikTok. He found fertile ground among a generation that no longer expect their lives to be better than those of their parents. While many of his followers concede that his ideas may be extreme and even a little crazy, they appear to be willing to take the risk of embracing the unknown on the basis that the really crazy plan would be to allow those long in control to retain their power and expect things to turn out differently this time. A leader of the so-called ‘rebellious right’, Milei has capitalised on the despair, hopelessness and accumulated anger so many rightfully feel.

Surprise after surprise

The first surprise came on 13 August, when Milei won the most votes of any candidate in the primaries. Argentina’s open, simultaneous and compulsory primaries are meant for each party to select their candidates, and all parties must hold them even if they only have one aspiring candidate. With voting mandatory, they serve as a preview of the real election.

Milei only entered politics in 2021, when the 17 per cent vote he amassed in the capital, Buenos Aires, sent him and two other libertarians to the National Congress. In the 2023 primaries he went much further, winning 30 per cent of the vote. He got ahead of JxC, whose two candidates received a joint 28 per cent, and UP, the current incarnation of the Peronist Party, which took 27 per cent. The bulk of the UP vote, 21 per cent, went to Massa. That Peronism, once the dominant force, came third was a historic first.

The second surprise came on 22 October. Following the primaries, all the talk was of Milei winning the presidency. He trumpeted his intent to win the first round outright with no need for a runoff. Measured against these expectations, his second place looks like an underperformance. But the fact that a candidate who wasn’t on the radar before the primaries has made the runoff shows how quickly the political landscape can shift.

In the first electoral round Milei took almost the exact share of the vote he’d received in the primaries. Massa finished above him with almost 37 per cent of the vote, displacing JxC, which lost four points on its second-place performance in the primaries.

The fact that the economy minister was able to distance himself from the government he’s part of – one often described as the worst in 40 years – to come first was viewed as a notable victory even though his share was just about the lowest Peronism has ever received.

One explanation for Massa’s improved performance was turnout, which increased by eight points to almost 78 per cent – still low for a country with compulsory voting, but enough to make a difference. Much of the increase could be credited to the political machinery that mobilised voters on election day, aided by the minister-candidate pulling as many levers as he could to improve his chances. This included putting lots of instant cash into voters’ pockets, including through tax breaks benefiting targeted groups of workers and consumers.

In another novelty, age has now become a better predictor of voting choices than social class. Milei was the most popular candidate among voters aged 16 to 30, while JxC’s Patricia Bullrich made strides among those over 50 and Massa’s electorate was more mixed. Milei’s vote was also the most gender imbalanced, with men outweighing women 60 to 40 per cent. One of the questions for the runoff is therefore whether the surge of online feminist activism, mobilising to defend hard-won rights, can make a difference.

What next?

Although Milei emerged from the first round wounded, there’s still much uncertainty ahead as the November runoff vote approaches. Economic failure is Milei’s best propaganda, so much will depend on how the economy behaves over the next couple of weeks. Every additional point in the inflation rate and every hike in the price of the US dollar can potentially bring him more votes.

All voters firmly in one camp or the other have already had their say in October. With Massa having claimed 37 per cent and Milei 30 per cent, whoever crosses the 50 per cent threshold will do so with the help of a lot of votes from people who didn’t want either of them. They know their best bet is to appeal to the centre, which is why they both made strikingly subdued victory speeches on election night.

The two contenders couldn’t be more different – but their differences don’t fit neatly into a right-left ideological axis. Massa only appears to be a left-leaning option in contrast to his extreme right-wing adversary.

Massa is undoubtedly the face of the political establishment – what Milei calls the caste. He has a decades-long career in the Peronist political movement that has held power for most of the time since the 1983 democratic transition, and has tasted all of the flavours it has acquired along the way, from its 1990s neoliberal version to its current centre-left incarnation.

Whoever wins on 19 November will likely have to implement an adjustment plan to deal with the economic crisis that has Argentina on the brink of hyperinflation. Things will likely get a lot worse before they start getting better.

If he wins, it won’t be easy for Massa to change course – particularly since he’s promised to maintain some redistributive policies such as energy subsidies – and he’d have to do grudgingly what Milei would do happily. But the results of the legislative election held concurrently with the presidential first round in October indicate he’d have the easier time governing.

To pass laws, the new president will need to form alliances, negotiate and reach compromises in a Congress where he won’t have a majority. Argentina being a federal state, he’ll also need to gather support among provincial governors. Things don’t look so good for Massa on that front: following this year’s provincial elections, which many governors chose to hold separately to avoid being dragged down by their parties’ potential national defeat, JxC will hold 10 governorships and UP will have only eight – the lowest number it’s ever had – while the remaining six will be led by provincial parties. But Milei will have it much more difficult, as his party, completely lacking roots on the ground and dependent solely on his disruptive leadership, failed to secure any.

Massa will have an easier time building the required majorities both because his party has more support but also because his politics are flexible and he’s a seasoned negotiator. Before being appointed as economy minister, Massa was a mayor and presidential chief of staff, and he previously ran for president in 2015. He also built a legislative career: he started as a provincial legislator and went on to serve three terms as a national deputy and one as a national senator.

Milei has no government experience and, crucially, seems to be in denial about how government works, showing impatience at any mention of the obstacles he may encounter. Some of his proposals would require constitutional reforms completely beyond his reach. Asked how he would realise his promises, he’s appeared intent on circumventing institutional checks and balances to impose them at any cost.

An unpalatable decision

Neither those currently in power nor those in the mainstream opposition recognise the obvious: Milei is their fault. They’ve held power for the best part of the past 40 years without effectively tackling any of the issues that concern people the most. They’ve administered the state as if it were their personal property, filling their pockets and using public resources to reward loyalty and punish enmity, or have tried to run it like a private company.

Initially Massa even encouraged Milei, channelling resources to his campaign and providing candidates for his party lists, on the basis that it would erode his mainstream centre-right competitor’s support. Only too late did he realise that Milei was shaving off votes from both right and left, harming not only JxC but also UP.

Many voters now feel they face an unpalatable choice between a corrupt and failing government and a dangerous disruptor. They fear that if they choose to keep Milei out, their votes may be misinterpreted as a show of active support for a continuity they also reject. What’s at stake here is more than one election. If Milei is kept at bay, the political dynamics leading to the current economic dysfunction will still need to be addressed – or the far-right threat to democracy won’t end with him.