Javier Milei, the ultraliberal candidate who captivated Argentine youth

With an electoral participation that exceeded 76%, the Argentine people elected the president who will govern in the next four years: the economist Javier Milei surpassed the candidate of the Union for the Homeland party, Sergio Massa, by more than 10 points.

Milei began his political career in 2021 by running as a candidate to occupy a place in the Chamber of Deputies for the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, for the La Libertad Avanza party.. In the elections the lion (that's what they call Milei) was elected as a national deputy. In just two years he managed to captivate millions of Argentines with his liberal ideas and became a serious candidate to win the presidential elections.. The question is: Who votes for Milei?

A large niche of the people who elected the ultraliberal at the polls are young people, some of them the famous millennials.. This generation has seen firsthand how their country has collapsed economically and socially over the years.. And for them the culprit is the government in power: Kirchnerism, a movement that governed in 16 of the last 20 years of Argentine history.

Javier Milei defeats Peronism and Argentina launches into an unprecedented political experiment in the country

Many of those who voted for Milei today, voted with enthusiasm in 2015 for former president Mauricio Macri. At that moment, a very strong change occurred in the Argentine people, as Kirchnerism said goodbye after 12 years in office – four from Néstor Kirchner and eight from Cristina Fernández.. However, Macri's mismanagement caused Argentines to elect Kirchnerism again in 2019 with the formula of Alberto Fernández as president and Cristina Fernández as vice president.

The pandemic received Fernández when he had only been in office for a few months. The mandatory isolation imposed by the president will be remembered as the longest in history (it lasted the longest in the world), but that was not what was most demanded of the current president of Argentina: The birthday celebration of his wife in full quarantine and the subsequent leak of images of the celebration at the Olivos villa – the main official residence of the president of the Argentine nation – caused a shock on the public agenda. While an entire population was locked up, Argentines died as a result of covid, and nurses and doctors worked day and night in hospitals, the main president was celebrating the first lady's birthday with a dozen people. Added to his internal relationship with CFK (Cristina Fernández de Kirchner), and the support lost over time from his closest allies, meant that Fernández did not even appear in the elections that took place this Sunday.

Milei, the economist who captivated thousands of young people with the ideas of liberalism and his dollarization plan; to those kids – that's what they call young people there – who long to stay in their country and not go to destinations like the United States, Australia or even Spain, in search of a better future.

According to data from the Argentine National Electoral Directorate, on Sunday there were more than 1,168,033 adolescents aged 16 and 17 who were eligible to vote in the second round this Sunday. The figure is equivalent to 3.3% of the registry. In that sense, there was almost 47% more than in the 2019 national elections.

Victoria Villarruel, candidate for vice president of La Libertad Avanza, declared last Tuesday in an Argentine media: “Young people stop us on the street and tell us 'I don't want to leave the country, do something.'. Former President Macri did the same on Wednesday, having already made public his support for Milei: “Let's follow the young people, they say they want change.”. Let's give the right to young people.”

A large part of the Argentine youth clung to the illusion that their country could reverse inflation, of which the Peronist candidate Sergio Massa, current minister of economy, is responsible for this year's inflation (142%).

Social networks have played a fundamental role in the campaign for the “libertarian liberal” to adopt so much fame, a strategy similar to that used by Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump. Precisely last Sunday after the presidential debate, the most important newspapers in Argentina such as Clarín or La Nación declared Massa the winner of the debate, while on social networks there was talk of a resounding victory for Milei.

Not only the young people voted for Milei, but also a frustrated and angry society that defines itself as “anti-Kirchnerist” and that wanted the next president to be a libertarian, and even more so, not to be Massa.. Many of those who voted for Patricia Bullrich chose to vote for the economist since they could not imagine four more years with a Peronist government. And there was the key in these elections, the decision of the more than 6 million Argentines who voted for Patricia Bullrich on October 22, and who yesterday voted for Milei.