Argentinian economist Javier Milei is being viewed as a real contender in new polls that have emerged since he upended expectations by coming first in the primary elections one week ago. .“Even Kirchneristas changed sides and voted for Milei,” Universidad Nacional de Cordoba political science professor Valeria Brusco told CBC News on Wednesday. .“You could say that's ideologically impossible, but it happened.”.Earlier polls failed to capture Milei’s strength, because polling is banned in Argentina during the week before the vote. New polls published in the vote’s aftermath show him in a powerful position heading into Argentina’s presidential elections on October 22. .Milei’s trademark leather jacket, sideburns and piercing blue eyes have made him a regular fixture on Argentina’s political talk shows over the last decade, with his combative style boosting his popularity..He featured these optics into his own television and radio shows and into his political party Liberty Advances. .His potential presidency brings joy to some people and misery to others, with few left indifferent. .The policies he is proposing for Argentina’s poor economy, which include abolishing its peso currency and dollarizing the economy, are bold. He has pledged to cut taxes, eliminate government jobs, and end subsidies to poor people. .One-third of Argentinian voters cast a ballot for him. Some people said his policies would destroy the country. .What many Argentinians have acknowledged is if they are carried out, they will represent a revolution in a country which has been mostly governed from the left since returning to democracy in 1983. .It is above all the country’s relentless inflation — now running at an annualized rate of about 115% — that has opened people’s minds to his ideas. Two-fifths of Argentinians live in poverty, including 54% of children. .Polls conducted by Brusco and her colleagues revealed his appeal was not limited to business circles, property owners, and the middle class. .“We've been studying and following the phenomenon from 2021 and we saw it coming,” said Brusco. .She said they “saw it expanding its popularity in different areas in the country, not only urban areas and big cities, but very poor areas of the country.” For them, she said it was unsurprising. .The Milei vote is a protest, and poor people have the most to protest about. Its salaried workers, who are able to renegotiate their wages because of strong unions, have some protection against inflation..For the millions of people who work in the informal sector and do not have a union, they have suffered the most in its inflationary spiral..The arrival of an unapologetic right-wing populist leader marks a cultural shift in Argentina. .For years, it has been divided between supporters and opponents of Argentinian Vice President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner and her husband and former president Nestor..Like modern-day versions of Peronist icons Juan and Eva Peron, the Kirchners have dominated Argentina in the 21st century, building a massive welfare state financed by taxing the rural export economy, debt and money printing. They used this money to create the country’s largest political base. .The Kirchners’ allies in the Americas were socialist governments. On the world stage, they sought to cozy up with China, Russia and Iran..On the other side was the centre-right which sought to restore fiscal stability and more traditional alliances with the United States and other democracies..The centre-right governed from 2015 to 2019 under former Argentinian president Mauricio Macri, but he failed to restore its prosperity. .Milei aims his fire at the two sides, branding the political class as the caste — a monolithic group he accuses of sucking average people dry. .While he reserves his toughest language for the left, he rejects the centre-right as too timid, too establishment and too invested in the current structure to change it. .Milei presents himself as the one true outsider, describing himself as a bold anarcho-capitalist who is ready to tear down the entire system and rebuild it with a minimalist government and unfettered free markets — an approach he says Argentina has not tried.
