{"id":16316,"date":"2023-11-23T20:55:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-23T18:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=16316"},"modified":"2023-11-23T20:55:00","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T18:55:00","slug":"president-of-argentina-javier-millay-the-countrys-accession-to-brics-is-now-doubtful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/?p=16316","title":{"rendered":"President of Argentina Javier Millay \u2013 The country’s accession to BRICS is now doubtful"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Argentina’s citizens have elected Javier Millay as the country’s new president, and the first thought in Russia and China is whether he will follow through on the threat he made over the summer to cancel its BRICS membership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ultra-liberal economist won the second round of the presidential election with 55.95% of the vote to 44.04% of his opponent, centrist Economy Minister Sergio Massa, with 86% of the ballots counted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Javier Millay “is the president elected by the majority of Argentines for the next four years,” said S. Massa, who had taken first place in the first round of elections on October 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few hours after the first partial results were announced, the candidate from the Peronist (center-left) coalition told supporters gathered in front of his campaign headquarters in Buenos Aires that he called H. Millay “to congratulate him and to wish him luck.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millay promises economic shock therapy that includes everything from shutting down the central bank to scrapping the peso and cutting spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are potentially painful reforms that resonate with voters angered by triple-digit inflation, a looming recession and rising poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first round of voting in October, Massa won 36.7% of the vote to about 30% for Miley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 53-year-old Millay, an economist who heads the Freedom Advances party, has been compared to right-wing leaders such as former United States President Donald Trump and former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inflation in Argentina is now “galloping” at 143% on an annual basis. The foreign exchange reserves of Latin America’s third-largest economy have been depleted to prop up the collapsing Argentine peso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the country \u2013 the largest debtor to the IMF in the world, 40% of its 45.8 million inhabitants are mired in poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In total, their “backs” are burdened by 46 billion dollars of debts to the Fund and about 400 billion dollars of public debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Against this background, the second round of the presidential elections in Argentina took place on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was an electoral duel unprecedented in Argentina’s post-dictatorial annals, in a climate of extreme polarization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On one side was a far-right populist and political outsider, Javier Millay, a self-described “anarcho-capitalist” economist turned TV personality and just two years ago a member of parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the other side was Argentina’s Peronist Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, as the presidential candidate of a political force with a history of seventy years in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the former prevailed, with a difference of almost three million votes, also due to the support of the opposition Right, leading to an electoral defeat for the center-left Peronist movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a climate of despair from the chronic economic disaster in the country, Millay was voted by many from the middle and lower economic classes, especially young people, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the restoration of the Republic in the Latin American country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Millay is also staunchly anti-abortion, favors looser gun laws and has called Argentina’s Pope Francis a socialist. He used to carry a chainsaw as a symbol of his planned cuts, but has put it on the shelf in recent weeks to boost his modest image.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The challenges of the new president of Argentina<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using social media as a “vehicle” and the mass media’s uncritical overpromotion of him as a new political phenomenon – his party, La Libertad Avanza (“Freedom Advances”) was only created in 2021 – he “capitalized” as anti-systemic on the popular dissatisfaction with perpetual financial crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although part of the domestic elite, he appeared as an opponent of the traditional post-colonial ruling parties, Peronists and anti-Peronists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in the absence of a parliamentary majority, he will need the support of the latter to implement his extreme agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An avowed fan of former US President Donald Trump, 53-year-old Javier Millay appeared at campaign rallies with a chainsaw, promising to “cut the state to pieces”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Touted as even tougher than the IMF, his program includes abolishing the Central Bank. Replacement of the national currency with the dollar. Mass privatizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He wants drastic cuts in taxes and public spending. Mass privatizations. Dismantling the welfare state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He characterizes social justice as “robbing those who work.” He announced the abolition of the Ministries of Education, Health and Social Development, as well as the dismissal of hundreds of thousands of civil servants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He is committed to busting the unions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He promises “absolute personal freedom” – from gun ownership and choosing a gender identity, to the sale of human organs – but wants to cancel the right to abortion secured by a referendum in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He rejects climate change as “one of the lies of socialism” and bullies with the “danger of communism”, characterizing even the Argentine progressive Pope Francis as its embodiment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He “invested” politically in historical oblivion, appointing Victoria Villaruel, the daughter of an officer of the austere Videla dictatorship, as his vice president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has announced domestic strict enforcement of “law and order” and foreign tightening of relations with the US and Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the midst of the war in the Gaza Strip, in fact, he committed to the transfer of the Argentine embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing it as the capital of the Israeli state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He has repeatedly stated that he seeks the return of Argentina to the Western bloc. The voters of the country may not have understood that their choice was not political but geostrategic with very serious consequences. In any case, the election of the new president is considered a blow to the “multipolar world”.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The “Shock Doctrine”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Javier Millay\u2014who as a child was abused by his father, as a teenager sought an outlet by playing soccer and music in a rock band, and as an adult became a leading exponent of the populist far-right\u2014election to the presidency of Argentina is clearly the fulfillment of a personal goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the country itself and its international lenders it marks an unimaginably absurd “gamble”, in an Orwellian social, political and economic “experiment”, 40 years after the fall of the Videla dictatorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It takes place against the background of a deep multi-year crisis, which eroded voters’ trust in politicians and turned the majority of them to an uninvited “national savior”, who has zero political experience and democratic credentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an unauthorized biography, her journalist-author Juan Luis Gondaleth preferred the title “El Loco”. “The crazy”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“More than Miley’s ideas, what worries me is his state of mind,” he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is even said that the unmarried and childless next president of Argentina has as his advisors four clones of his\u2026 dog, Conan, who he called his “child”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He himself, it is reported, believes that his relationship with the huge English mastiff – which died in 2017 – spans 2,000 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He believes that the two faced each other as gladiator and lion in the Roman Colosseum, but did not fight, as they were destined to join forces in the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He claims that in a posthumous telepathic communication, the quadruped told him that it was God’s command that Millay become president of Argentina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If that’s the case, they’re the best political analysts in the world,” he said of clone dogs when asked about it by the Economist last September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Tell me, when has an outsider of outsiders achieved what we have achieved in two years?” he asked, without actually answering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now he proclaims that the “knife” will go to the “bone” in Argentina.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Argentina’s citizens have elected Javier Millay as the country’s new president, and the first thought in Russia and China is whether he will follow…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[820,390],"tags":[894,779,4625,4131],"class_list":["post-16316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-politics","tag-argentina","tag-elections","tag-javier-millay","tag-new-liberalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16321,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16316\/revisions\/16321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.liberalglobe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}