2023-10-22 04:33:05
BUENOS AIRES (AP) — Amid frustration over the economic and social situation, more than 35 million Argentines are called to vote on Sunday in the presidential elections that could give rise to a new political cycle if the far-right economist is elected. Javier Milei, who has promised to end inflation, crime and corruption.
Milei, 52 years old and leader of La Libertad Avanza, is a favorite in most polls with his speech against the traditional political class, which he calls a “caste” of privileged people and has been able to empathize with broad popular sectors that have their purchasing power pulverized and they have witnessed constant corruption scandals carried out by public officials.
Milei’s main rivals in a scenario marked by high volatility are the Minister of Economy Sergio Massa, of the Peronist Unión por la Patria, and Patricia Bullrich, of the Together for Change coalition. If the economist with an aggressive speech prevails in the elections, he will relegate Peronism on the political stage, which has largely retained power in the last 20 years, and that center-right coalition that governed between 2015 and 2019.
President Alberto Fernández, with a bad image in opinion polls, gave up seeking re-election and vice president and former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015), who faces different cases for alleged corruption, did not run either.
Argentines will vote in a difficult economic context, with annual inflation of just over 138% and poverty that affects 40.1% of the population of some 46 million inhabitants.
The accelerated rise in prices and insecurity are at the top of the concerns of the inhabitants of the South American country in opinion polls.
Milei proposes a comprehensive reform of the State that includes a drastic cut in public spending and the privatization of public companies. To combat inflation he says that he will close the Central Bank because he considers it responsible for the unchecked monetary issue and free competition of currencies that culminates in a dollarization of the economy.
The economist, who identifies with the far-right former presidents Donald Trump of the United States and Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, proposes in his electoral platform “the deregulation of the legal” arms market “and protecting their legitimate and responsible use by citizens.” He defends that anyone who is in a position to request the possession of weapons can do so without being discouraged by the State itself, as he believes happens today in practice.
Massa, whom most polls place in second place, affirms that he will definitively cancel the debt of some 44,000 million dollars that the country took on in 2018 with the International Monetary Fund to remove the organization from the scene. He says he will achieve fiscal order and a trade surplus and tries to persuade the Peronist electorate to continue betting on the force that has implemented a vast network of social aid for the disadvantaged. He also warns that Milei’s policies hide a cut in basic rights.
Bullrich, for her part, defends her experience in the security area after being minister of that portfolio between 2015 and 2019. She has tried to convince voters that, as a member of a party that exercises power in several provincial governments and It enjoys a large parliamentary bloc, is capable of carrying out economic reform to promote growth.
To win the elections, the candidate with the most votes must obtain at least 45% of the valid votes or 40% and a difference of 10 percentage points over the second most voted. Otherwise, the two formulas with the most votes will face each other in a runoff on November 19.
Whoever is elected will assume power on December 10.
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