Argentina votes Sunday

Oct. 20, 2023

Argentines head to the polls on Sunday. Libertarian Javier Milei is widely expected to win, though the ultimate victor will likely be determined in a November runoff vote if no candidate obtains a clear majority (45% or 40% and a 10 point advantage). (Americas Quarterly has a round up of the candidates.)

Argentina is "at a political and economic breaking point," Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin American program at the Wilson Center, told Axios. This election has been on "another level of chaos and uncertainty," he said.

Polls, which have been notoriously off this electoral cycle, point to a likely faceoff in November between Milei and the current Peronist government candidate Sergio Massa.

El País’ poll aggregator puts Milei at 34.6% to Massa’s 30.4%, followed in third place by conservative coalition candidate Patricia Bullrich. However, there is considerable variation, and the last public polls are from five days ago, meaning a second round could also pit Milei against Bullrich. Milei-Massa would be a competition between the country’s old left and its new right, while the Milei-Bullrich competition would be between the country’s new right and it’s old right, explains El País.

Both Massa and Bullrich are longtime political veterans: “It remains to be seen whether experience is an asset or a liability in what has already been an atypical presidential race,” reports the Associated Press.

Milei obtained a surprisingly strong showing in August’s open primaries, nearly a third of participants voted for the outsider candidate whose incendiary discourse against the political establishment channels deep-seated anger at a country besieged by inflation and economic woes.

If Massa faces off against Milei in a second-round, as the current Economic Minister he must overcome the stigma of association with the country’s 134% inter-annual inflation. "Massa is the least Peronist of the Peronists," analyst Julio Burdman told Reuters, adding that while this put him at odds with the party's more activist "hard core," it helped him click with moderate voters.

Milei’s support is volatile, Andrei Roman, CEO of Atlas Intel, whose latest survey shows Massa ahead, told the Associated Press. Roman noted that about 40% of respondents who didn’t vote in the August primaries and plan to vote Sunday say they will cast their ballots for Massa.

More Argentina

• Sunday’s vote is a test for the global far right, and Milei has been compared to Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro, particularly in relation to his bellicose political style, reports the New York Times.

• Milei has provoked outrage among human rights activists in Argentina by questioning the number of victims of the last dictatorship, a decision likely related to “his alliance with his vice-presidential running mate, the ultra-conservative congresswoman Victoria Villarruel,” a dictatorship apologist who would head a Milei administration’s defense and security sectors, reports the Guardian.

• Milei is fascinated by Judaism — he has expressed interest in converting and has promised to move Argentina’s Israel embassy to Jerusalem if he wins. “Milei deploys sacred language for his political ends and conjures up a non-secular vision of Argentina that appeals to a growing contingent of evangelicals (as his Brazilian counterpart Jair Bolsonaro does far more overtly),” writes Facundo Milman in Compact Magazine. “At the same time, he aligns himself with an outsider religion. In Catholic Argentina, the Jew is the Other, and for Milei, Jews are, above all, outsiders and minorities; by becoming one, he is trying to position himself outside the country’s political establishment.”

• Journalist and data analyst Diego Corbalán characterises Milei’s online campaign as utilising a form of “horizontal communication,” in which the candidate is not actually the one in control of the flow of information about his campaign,” reports the Buenos Aires Times. “Rather there are “many social media accounts which are endorsed by him” that disseminate his message across a wide network of interconnected “followers, activists and others.” (Via The Road to the Casa Rosada)

• Among Milei’s many eccentricisms (albeit, perhaps, his most lovable) is his devotion to his five mastiffs, his “four-legged children,” named for libertarian economists. They are genetic copies of a beloved, late pet — Milei’s devotion to cloning and climate change denialism have concerned scientists who reject the frontrunner’s plan to shut down the national scientific and technical research council, reports the New York Times.

• Argentine football leaders, including AFA President Claudio Tapia, have come out in support of Sergio Massa, who continues to develop his power-base in domestic football, reports the Buenos Aires Times. (Via The Road to the Casa Rosada)

Venezuela

• The deals reached between Venezuela’s Maduro government and the political opposition — and the U.S. partial lifting of sanctions in response — “are a breakthrough in one of the Western Hemisphere’s most bitter and far-reaching political, economic, and humanitarian impasses,” writes Catherine Osborn at the Latin America Brief. (See yesterday’s post and Wednesday’s.)

• Together with the freeing of five political prisoners and the resumption of U.S. deportation flights to Venezuela, the rapid shifts this week “represent the most significant softening of relations between Venezuela and the United States in years,” reports the New York Times. “Among the factors driving this flurry of new policies is Venezuela’s increased geopolitical importance.”

• The speed of events related to Venezuela this week “and their profound implications still raise questions about whether the steps will pave the way to a democratic transition in the country,” writes Tony Frangie-Mawad in Americas Quarterly.

• On Sunday Venezuelan opposition parties will hold a primary election to select a unity candidate to run against President Nicolás Maduro in next year’s presidential election. María Corina Machado is widely expected to win, though she is banned from holding political office. A major challenge for the primary is carrying it out without the logistical support of the National Electoral Council (CNE), since the voting process will be self-managed and manual, reports El País.

Regional

• The Wilson Center’s Weekly Asado reviews Latin America’s responses to the Hamas attacks against Israel.

• Weak political representation and entrenched inequality make Latin America fertile ground for imitators of El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, writes Andrea Moncada in Americas Quarterly.

Guatemala

• Two weeks into protests demanding the resignation of Guatemalan attorney general Consuelo Porras, demonstrators remain in place around the country, reports the Economist.

• Porras, a steadfast opponent of president-elect Bernardo Arévalo, “has crafted a complex strategy to weaken his mandate or prevent him from taking office,” reports Reuters.

Migration

• The U.S. is pushing Mexico to increase enforcement against migration, but the country is struggling with a crisis of its own as historic numbers of asylum seekers cross its southern border, reports the Washington Post.

Haiti

• Joseph Félix Badio, a former Haitian Justice Ministry official who has been a prime suspect in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was arrested yesterday outside of Port-au-Prince, reports the New York Times.

• UN Expert Panel’s 156-page investigative report on Haiti “details a recent history of high-level government corruption and support for armed groups, painting the picture of a criminal state that not only thwarts progress but actively undermines the rule of law and human rights,” according to CEPR’s Haiti roundup. (See yesterday’s briefs.)

• The Eminent Persons Group working as CARICOM’s mediators in political negotiations is looking to relaunch the process, which has been at an impasse since their last visit to Port-au-Prince. (CEPR)

Mexico

• Mexico’s top human rights official, Alejandro Encinas, resigned yesterday. The head of the truth commission investigating the 2014 disappearance of 43 students, he said he was leaving government to work on Claudia Sheinbaum’s presidential campaign. (New York Times)

• Since 2019 more than 60 homes in El Bosque, in the Gulf of Mexico, have disappeared into the ocean as the climate crisis brings severe weather to the peninsula, reports the Guardian.

Jamaica

• Jamaica’s Kingston Harbor Cleanup Project has collected more than 1.3m kg of waste in two years — atypically, it is based on sustainable technology and incorporates barrier solutions pioneered in the Netherlands. Additionally it is all being done in close collaboration with the local community, private companies and nonprofit foundations, reports the Guardian.

More Venezuela

• A novel effort in Venezuela will use human hair to clean up Lake Maracaibo. (Washington Post)