Argentina President Milei Suffers Crushing Defeat in Buenos Aires Provincial Election

Argentina President Milei Suffers Crushing Defeat in Buenos Aires Provincial Election

Argentine President Javier Milei suffered a sweeping setback on Sunday in a Buenos Aires provincial election widely viewed as a political test for his libertarian party and a barometer for how it will perform in crucial congressional midterms next month.

Milei’s recently formed La Libertad Avanza party captured just 34% of the vote in Argentina’s biggest province, losing by a landslide to the left-leaning Peronist opposition, which secured 47% with the majority of ballots counted late Sunday.

Milei conceded that his right-wing party’s crushing 13-point loss to his populist rivals represented “a clear defeat.”

“We suffered a setback, and we must accept it responsibly,” Milei told grim-faced supporters at the party headquarters, his tone reflective, even chastened.

“If we’ve made political mistakes, we’re going to internalize them, we’re going to process them, we’re going to modify our actions,” he said.

Still, he vowed to stick with his sweeping economic overhaul, saying: “There will be no retreat in government policy.”

Milei faces a worse-than-expected defeat

With Milei struggling to stabilize a sputtering economy and his close associates embroiled by a graft scandal ahead of congressional midterm elections in late October, the results were being closely scrutinized for their potential to rattle investors and roil jittery global markets.

Analysts expected La Libertad Avanza to lose by a few points to the Peronists, but his allies feared that a worse-than-expected outcome in Buenos Aires province — which makes up nearly 40% of the country’s population — would galvanize his rivals at a delicate time.

Peronist leader and former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner appeared to feel on that she was getting some payback after a corruption conviction and criticism of her economic management, which led to a crisis that Milei inherited.

“Did you see that, Milei?” the two-term former president (2007-2015) wrote on social media platform X. “Get out of your bubble, brother. … Things are getting heavy.”

Stakes are raised for congressional midterms

Milei needs to expand his party’s tiny minority in the opposition-dominated Congress in midterms next month to fulfill his radical libertarian reforms and make good on his promise to turn the nine-time defaulter into a country capable of servicing its debts.

The Peronists are now the largest bloc in Argentina’s fragmented congress, and have used their numbers to pass social spending measures that are testing Milei’s efforts to balance Argentina’s budget.

“This result is a key data point to understand the social mood — where the opposition stands, the state of Peronism and the level of support for the government in Argentina’s most important electoral district,” said Juan Cruz Díaz, the head of Cefeidas Group, a consultancy in Buenos Aires.

“While not the main national election in October, it is nonetheless a wake-up call for the government, and how it reacts will be crucial to understanding the evolving political map.”

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