Right-Wing Javier Milei Takes Office As President Of Argentina

Javier Milei has been sworn in as Argentina’s President. After taking office on Sunday, right-wing economist Javier Milei aimed to prepare the populace for significant cuts to public spending.

Mr. Milei, 53, became well-known on television for his foul-mouthed tirades against the political caste. After being elected to Congress, he quickly entered the presidential race.

The self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” shocked the political world and turned the race upside down with his resounding victory in the August primaries.

Disillusioned with the country’s economic situation—four out of ten people living in poverty, triple-digit inflation, and a falling currency—Argentines were open to outsiders’ suggestions for improving their lot in life and changing the country.

He won the election’s November 19 second round decisively — and sent packing the Peronist political force that dominated Argentina for decades.

On Sunday morning, Mr Milei was sworn in inside the National Congress building, and outgoing President Alberto Fernandez placed the presidential sash upon him. Some of the assembled politicians chanted “Liberty!”.

In his inaugural address to thousands of supporters in the capital, Buenos Aires, he said: “We don’t have alternatives and we don’t have time. We don’t have margin for sterile discussions. Our country demands action, and immediate action. The political class left the country at the brink of its biggest crisis in history.

“We don’t desire the hard decisions that will be need to be made in coming weeks, but lamentably they didn’t leave us any option.”

But he promised the adjustment would almost entirely affect the state rather than the private sector, and that it represented the first step toward regaining prosperity.

“We know that in the short term the situation will worsen, but soon we will see the fruits of our effort, having created the base for solid and sustainable growth,” he said.

As a candidate, Mr Milei pledged to purge the political establishment of corruption, eliminate the Central Bank he has accused of printing money and fuelling inflation, and replace the rapidly depreciating peso with the US dollar.

But after winning, he tapped Luis Caputo, a former Central Bank president, to be his economy minister and one of Mr Caputo’s allies to head the bank, appearing to have put his much-touted plans for dollarisation on hold.

Mr Milei had cast himself as a willing warrior against the creep of global socialism, much like former US President Donald Trump, whom he openly admires. But when Mr Milei travelled to the US last week, he did not visit Mar-a-Lago but took lunch with another former US leader, Bill Clinton.

He also dispatched a diplomat with a long history of work in climate negotiations to the ongoing Cop28 conference in Dubai, Argentine newspaper La Nacion reported, despite having insistently rejected humanity’s involvement in global warming. And he backtracked on plans to scrap the nation’s health ministry.

His moderation may stem from pragmatism, given the scope of the immense challenge before him, his political inexperience and need to sow up alliances with other parties to implement his agenda in Congress, where his party is a distant third in number of seats held.

He chose Patricia Bullrich, a longtime politician and first-round adversary from the coalition with the second most seats, to be his security minister, as well as her running mate, Luis Petri, as his defence minister.

However, there are signs that Mr Milei has given up neither his defiance nor his radical plans to dismantle the state.

After his swearing-in, he intends to break tradition by delivering his inaugural address not to assembled politicians but to his supporters gathered outside the National Congress building — with his back turned to the legislature.

He was expected to refer to the economic travails he is inheriting from the outgoing president and to announce his first executive actions, including a drastic cut to public spending.

Argentina has a yawning fiscal deficit, a trade deficit of 43 billion dollars (£34 billion), plus a 45 billion-dollar (£36 billion) debt to the International Monetary Fund, with 10.6 billion dollars (£8.45 billion) due to the multilateral and private creditors by April.

“There’s no money,” is Mr Milei’s common refrain.

Already he has said he will eliminate multiple ministries, including those of culture, environment, women, and science and technology. He wants to meld the ministries of social development, labour and education together under a single ministry of human capital.

However, Mr Milei is likely to encounter fierce opposition from the Peronist movement’s MPs and the unions it controls, whose members have said they refuse to lose wages.