Change may be coming to a country that has suffered through an eighty-year catastrophic experiment in socialism. The primary results, which have every candidate appear on the same ballot, are usually a good predictor of how the general election will go. Argentina will vote on October 22, with a possible runoff on November 19.
From the Buenos Aires Herald: https://buenosairesherald.com/
Javier Milei, founder of the far-right coalition La Libertad Avanza (LLA), gave an exultant speech after getting 30% of the vote in Sunday’s primary elections. Milei, who currently represents Buenos Aires City as a national deputy, was the coalition’s sole presidential candidate.
The far-right libertarian economist’s victory came as a surprise…
Milei scornfully refers to career politicians as “the caste” and his economic program as the “chainsaw plan” — a nod to his proposed wide-ranging budget cuts and drastically reducing the size of the state. One of his trademark proposals which defined pre-electoral discourse is to abolish the Central Bank, effectively dollarizing the economy (and abolishing the peso) in a bid to combat inflation.
“We’re facing the end of the model of the caste. That model based on that atrocity which says where there is a need, a right is born, but they forget that that right has to be paid for,” he said. “It’s maximum expression, that aberration called social justice that makes us unequal before the law, a model that translates into a strong deficit.”…..
Towards the end of his speech, Milei took off his glasses and quoted a definition of liberalism by Argentine economist Alberto Benegas Lynch Jr. from memory: “Liberalism is unlimited respect for the lives and life plans of others.”
Milei began and ended the speech with his signature cry of “Viva la libertad, carajo!” (Long live freedom, damn it!) which was met with enraptured echoes from the crowd.”