Javier Milei is moving towards a rapid, clear and profound economic adjustment. This is how the people who talk to him the most since he won the election on November 19 define him. Fast, because Milei believes that we are one step away from hyperinflation and that there is not a minute to lose if we want to avoid it; clear, because it aims to make society begin to understand that on December 10 "the party ends"; and, profound, because it proposes an ambitious and risky cultural change that extends over time, based on a dramatic premise: not to spend a peso more than what comes in. Message of war. That's what it's all about.
One of the members of the entourage that accompanied the president-elect on his tour this week of New York and Washington describes it this way: "In the United States they told us that they are used to persuading Argentine ministers and presidents about the need to balance the books; here it was the other way around: Javier wanted to convince them of the need to get to the bottom once and for all."
Milei seems ready to walk along the ledge. In a country with more than 40% of poor people and with a year-on-year inflation of 140% that destroys wages and that - when the final numbers for 2023 are known - could quadruple that left by Mauricio Macri in 2019, he accelerates. That rhythm caused the first shocks in his team. "Some were afraid and left. Maybe it was free for them to speak from the rostrum and they never thought we were going to win," say the leaders of La Libertad Avanza.
The Mileist staff is preparing a broad package of initiatives to present in the inauguration speech. Many of them will be discussed in special sessions in Congress later this month. The new administration will propose eliminating at least 10 ministries and dozens of political positions, reforming the energy area and the exchange rate regime, suspending the discretionary remittance of resources to the provinces, an update of the labor regime and modifying the tax system. Perhaps, it will also be suggested that it is not possible to vote every two years. Several of the bills will be part of the so-called Omnibus Law, a mechanism for parliament to vote on many laws together in record time.
Those who parade through the libertarian leader's office on the 18th floor of the Libertador Hotel (he was on the 21st, but has just moved to a larger one) agree that the discourse of reducing expenses becomes extreme as the days go by and the veil of Kirchner's legacy is lifted. What looms is worse than imagined. A classic.
Once the euphoria of the electoral victory had died down, Milei's first message to businessmen, governors and future members of the Cabinet was: "There is no money." Now he turned to a much more defiant warning: "Fix yourselves however you can."
Governors are on guard. There are already two leagues: the one that brings together the Peronists and the newer, which houses the ten leaders of Together for Change. In this group, sparks are drawn on how to approach the change of course that will begin in a week. On Tuesday, they met at the German Riding Club, along with lawmakers who will leave office and those who are yet to come. Ignacio Torres (Chubut), Rogelio Frigerio (Entre Ríos), Marcelo Orrego (San Juan) and Maximiliano Pullaro (Santa Fe) made it a priority not to stop sending funds from the Nation to the provinces and said that "they elected us to be the opposition," as if marking a limit with mileism. Cristian Ritondo put the brakes on them: "When they took away the funds from the City, they didn't say anything and that is also federalism." Deputy-elect Silvana Giudici joined the criticism and several did not tolerate it. At least five of the governors left the scene.
Milei obtained 14,554,560 votes in the second round and took a difference of more than eleven points from Sergio Massa. There is consensus that it will try to take advantage of that capital to withstand the onslaught that comes. The streets will be hot. The piquetero groups are preparing a plan of struggle for December 19 and 20, dates that coincide with the rebellion suffered by Fernando de la Rua in 2001 and that ended up overthrowing his government. Trotskyist piqueteros could surround Congress in protest against the new administration. There will be no easy times ahead.
Macri appeals to the memory of the now famous fourteen tons of stones that hundreds of demonstrators threw at Congress and the Police on September 18, 2017, when they sought to approve the Retirement Mobility Law. It is a way of raising awareness about the risks that confront Peronism and the left. That year, Cambiemos had swept the legislative elections, but that was not enough to cool the mobilizations. There are those who see that event as the beginning of the end of the Macri era.
This is what Macri tried to explain to Milei in their first meeting alone, after the second round. The former president insisted on the thesis of building governability from Congress. He suggested that Ritondo should be the president of the Chamber of Deputies. Milei welcomed the suggestion, but decided otherwise. At first he thought of Florencio Randazzo, but it didn't take long for him to see – as Clarín revealed last Sunday – that Cristina had already given orders not to vote for her former minister.
The vice-president, as can be seen, has no plans to retire. He waited for the election performance and returned to the scene. While Sergio Massa chooses to keep a low profile and Alberto Fernández plans to go live in Spain, Cristina remains active: she makes videos on Tik-Tok that go viral, punishes Milei and sets the tone for him, does not take her eyes off Congress and, in private, moves to condition the arming of Axel Kicillof, the governor with the most votes and her favorite disciple. much more so now that Máximo Kirchner has fallen from grace.
She said she would support a Libertarian as House speaker. Yesterday it was confirmed that it will be Martín Menem. Cristina won a modest victory. It remains to be seen how far Milei will be able to reap the benefits. The same thing could happen to the deputy from La Rioja as to several of the members of the Cabinet: he does not have much experience and is obliged to reach a consensus with intransigent leaders, willing - if necessary - to move on the edge of the law. Milei has only 38 deputies, Together for Change with 94 and Union for the Homeland with 107.
Milei listened to Macri's opinion, praised him excessively – as he also does in interviews – but decided with his smaller table that the best thing to do was to trust the position of Guillermo Francos, who will be his Minister of the Interior. The founder of the PRO said among his intimates that he feels unsettled by the conduct of the libertarian leader. He can't believe he's negotiating with Peronism. "It's his right, but I don't understand it," he said.
Macri was also shocked to learn through the media of Patricia Bullrich's appointment as Security. And, before that, Luis Caputo's in Economics. "Toto" came into Milei's world by the hand of his nephew, Santiago Caputo, the guru of the campaign: he set up the first meeting, a little more than six months ago. Perhaps Macri fantasized about something else: about being the power behind the power or a kind of controller in the shadows. It wouldn't be happening.
"If you want to take over as minister, that's fine, but it's up to you, not the PRO's," was the last thing Macri said to Bullrich, when the announcement was about to fall. His moodiness increased when he found out that Patricia had sent a WhatsApp message to Viviana Canosa in the middle of the LN+ program to say that she does not submit to him. The host read the text on the air.
Macri and Bullrich are at the worst moment in the relationship. The former president, on the other hand, is trying to preserve the link with Milei. After a few days of impasse, in which the dialogue seemed frozen, the two spoke at length again on Friday night. It was a friendly chat. They were scheduled to contact each other again yesterday.
This is not the time to prioritize differences, they think. After all, next Sunday, at 12 noon, the two will be able to celebrate the same thing: that the presidential sash and baton will not pass from one Peronist to another and that Sergio Massa, who only forty-two days ago won the elections by seven points and seemed president, will have to watch the handover ceremony. Like the rest of us, on television.