Argentines will cast their final vote for president in the run-off elections this Sunday. Argentina’s electoral legislation does not allow polls to be released in the week leading up to the vote, which makes the final stretch of the presidential race between Peronist Sergio Massa, of Unión Por la Patria, and the right-wing Javier Milei, of Libertad Avanza, even more unpredictable.
The latest polls indicate that the country is divided, and the experts, who call this election “the most important in Argentine history,” don’t hazard a guess as to who will sit in the presidential chair in the Casa Rosada starting on December 10.
The latest poll released is by AtlasIntel, published on November 10, which puts Milei in the lead with 52.1% of voting intentions. Massa comes in with 47.9%. The margin of error is 2.2%, leaving the candidates technically tied.
On November 8, the Latin American Strategic Center for Geopolitics (Celag) released its poll, which showed Sergio Massa winning. The Peronist appeared with 46.7%, against 45.3% for Milei.
The Solmoirago institute, which also published its poll on November 8, points to Milei’s victory, with 44.2%, against 42.5% for Sergio Massa, in another scenario of a technical tie.
The survey furthest from balance was carried out by the Proyección institute, which was published on October 31, and showed Massa ahead with 44.6%, against 33.2% for Milei.
Proyección was the institute that came closest to the result of the first round, predicting that Massa would finish ahead, which is what ended up happening, while the others pointed to Milei’s victory.
According to the National Electoral Directorate, 35 million Argentines are eligible to vote in the country’s 104,577 polling stations.
Massa nods to the military and workers; Milei criticizes “communists” and calls for ballot boxes to be monitored
On November 15, Massa took part in an event in which he highlighted the democratic spirit of the Armed Forces and emphasized the defense of national sovereignty, met with tenants to discuss housing proposals and gave a television interview in which he announced that if elected, he will reveal the name of the future Minister of the Economy, who will not come from his political group—the candidate has stressed the idea of putting together a cabinet of “national unity.”
“The biggest income recovery will take place next year, because we’re going to halve inflation,” the candidate, who is currently economy minister, told the news channel TN. He reiterated that the dollarization proposed by Milei is “a mega-devaluation” of the peso and that further opening up of the economy would mean “the closure of small and medium-sized businesses.” As for his government plan, Massa indicated that he will renegotiate the agreement with the International Monetary Fund because it is “inflationary”.
During the launch of the Summer Antarctic Campaign at the Naval Embankment in the Port of Buenos Aires, Massa emphasized that “the Argentine state is convinced that national sovereignty is also a central value for the construction of our homeland’s identity.”
“The defense of the sovereignty of the Malvinas not only represents the opening of the discussion on the participation of Great Britain in its policy of expansion of the Antarctic continent, but also represents a milestone in terms of what the defense of our sovereignty and the care of each of the territories of our homeland should be,” he added after Milei’s comments in the presidential debate about former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
This Thursday, Massa closed his campaign for the second round with various activities: he presented his ideas to businesspeople at a meeting of the Inter-American Council for Trade and Production (CICyP), he then met with students from a public school in the City of Buenos Aire, and he ended the day with a meeting with workers in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area.
A campaign event for the ultra-liberal Javier Milei ended in confusion late on Wednesday afternoon in Ezeiza, a city near Buenos Aires that is a Peronist stronghold. There was shoving, a shower of eggs and war cries from voters from the two groups contesting the election. Milei’s supporters demanded that the police clear the way so that they could carry out the planned motorcade, and accused the local mayor, a Peronist, of having summoned his supporters. The Peronist mayor denied this and said that he had only gone to the scene to ensure security, as the atmosphere was tense.
After the confusion, Milei’s campaign canceled the planned motorcade and he only gave a speech, in which he called on his supporters to monitor the polls. “We have the votes [to win], we need to protect them. To do that, we need to monitor them. For the good of the Republic and our country,” he said. It stormed on that day, but Milei’s supporters didn’t shy away and continued shouting that “the caste is afraid,” echoing one of Milei’s campaign slogans, which criticizes what he calls the “political caste,” i.e. traditional politics.
Earlier in the day, at a lunch with CICyP businessmen at the Alvear, a luxury hotel in Buenos Aires, which also brought together some ambassadors, Milei once again made provocative statements. In one of his speeches, the candidate told those present, “Keep trading with whoever you want, but I won’t be allied with communists.” At one of the tables was Brazilian ambassador Julio Bitelli.
Milei has already called President Lula a communist and corrupt, has accused the Brazilian government of getting involved in Sergio Massa’s campaign, and has said that his allies in the world are the United States, Israel and what he calls the free world. Despite not officially declaring support for Sergio Massa, recent statements by Lula indicate sympathy for his candidacy. On Tuesday, Lula said that Argentinians need a leader who “likes democracy, respects institutions, likes Mercosur, likes South America.”
Another of Milei’s speeches that caused discomfort was when he suggested that businesspeople “wake up” and stop letting themselves be robbed. “That kind of speech is not for this audience,” said a lawyer who attended the meeting. Some were wary of the candidate’s “amateurishness.”
Some of Milei’s proposals sound so strange and unfeasible that, in order to boost his candidacy, his most notorious supporter, former president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), tells his interlocutors not to worry because the candidate, even if elected, won’t be able to carry them out.
“There are things he is proposing that are extreme, but he will have to negotiate them with Congress because he doesn’t have enough votes,” Macri said in an interview in a series of reports at the Woodrow Wilson Center. In another interview, with La Nación+, Macri addressed the same issue: “I know that what Milei is proposing isn’t perfect, but the things you don’t like, he’ll have to negotiate with Congress.”
This article was adapted and translated from two articles originally published in Portuguese on Brasil de Fato.
