Carlo Barroso stands at the wide-open glass doors of the Supertienda Onze men’s clothing store, flanked by brightly lit showcases displaying the latest polos, jeans, and shorts for spring.
The sidewalk in front of the salesman’s shop in the Argentine capital’s Onze neighborhood is busy, but few passers-by stop to peruse the sartorial fare. Even fewer enter the store.
“What can we expect, there is no money,” says Mr. Barroso, quoting – consciously or not – Argentina’s libertarian economist president, Javier Milei. The shaggy-haired iconoclast entered office two years ago saying he had no choice but to chainsaw the state and slash a generous but bankrupting social safety net, because “No hay plata” – There is no money.
Why We Wrote This
Argentina votes Sunday in midterm legislative elections that serve as a report card for President Javier Milei’s economic policies. He tamed inflation, but now the economy is stalled, many are worse off, and corruption has emerged as an issue.
On Sunday, Argentina holds national legislative elections that many political analysts and economists say could buoy or sink the Milei revolution. The president appears to be hoping that voters will consider his crowning achievements – taming crushing inflation and balancing the budget – enough of a reason to give him a supportive Congress to allow his reform agenda to proceed.
It’s a big ask. Even the brash Mr. Milei acknowledges with some uncharacteristic contrition that many are worse off owing to his disruption of a coddling state that dates back seven decades to the paternalist-populist Juan Perón.
“It’s true the situation is tough. I never said it would be easy,” he said in a television interview this month. But “I’m asking Argentines … to not give up, because we’re halfway there.”
An aversion to inflation
The president’s hopes may lie with voters like Mr. Barroso, who says that despite the lifeless economy, Mr. Milei has done enough good to deserve more time.
“He started out with a bang, but he lost the momentum and everything stalled,” he says, leaning on a rack of $5 T-shirts. “He needs more support to get things going again, so that’s how I’ll vote.”
Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor
Mr. Milei can’t expect much more enthusiasm than that, some analysts say, but what gives him a chance is a stronger refusal to return to the high-inflation populist past.
“People have lost the patience they initially extended to Milei,” says Ignacio Labaqui, senior analyst with Medley Global Advisors in Buenos Aires. But at the same time “there is still a very strong anti-Perónist sentiment,” he adds. “That explains why Milei hasn’t faced a backlash even though he has lost the enthusiasm he once enjoyed.”
Indeed, he says, Sunday’s outcome could depend on how a widely downbeat electorate chooses between two unenticing paths.
The campaign has rolled out with an unusual and – for some Argentines – intriguing feature: the full-throated support for Mr. Milei from U.S. President Donald Trump. That’s backed by a $20 billion U.S. Treasury currency rescue package clearly aimed at improving the Argentine leader’s electoral prospects.
Mr. Trump is so intent on aiding his closest ideological ally in the hemisphere that he is pledging to quadruple imports of Argentina’s iconic beef – even though he says its purpose is to lower U.S. beef prices.
Yet despite the brouhaha over what some here see as unacceptable Yankee interference in a sovereign nation’s affairs, the campaign has remained an in-house affair and a kind of midterm referendum on Mr. Milei.
Stalled economy, tarnished image
Just a few months ago, most analysts assumed Mr. Milei would cruise to a solid victory Sunday and benefit from a supportive Congress to pursue labor and retirement system reforms. But then the economy stalled and corruption charges dominated headlines, changing the outlook.
“Milei was clearly on a roll, but over the last five or six months we’ve seen a tarnishing of his image,” says Tomás Múgica, a political scientist at Argentina Catholic University in Buenos Aires. “He’s lost people hurt by his reforms, and others now associate him with the corruption he promised to defeat, so his pathway to a win is much narrower now.”
Some early supporters say they are too disappointed to give the leader who once caught their imagination a second chance.
“Milei had very good ideas, which is why I voted for him, but then he carried them out poorly,” says Tamara Basueldo, a human resources analyst for a Buenos Aires insurance company.
Enjoying an afternoon break in the warm sun, she says she was drawn to Mr. Milei’s promise to root out what he dubbed “la casta,” the country’s entrenched and “corrupt” political class.
“But instead he went against the people,” she says, noting he “cut so many people’s social benefits without delivering anything to replace them, like more jobs. I can’t support that,” she adds, “so in the election I’ll be turning left.”
A sense that Mr. Milei has not only failed to deliver on his promise to slay “la casta,” but has delivered corruption scandals of his own, may end up being what hurts him the most, some analysts say.
“With inflation down from higher than 200% annually to a more tolerable rate somewhere below 30%, I think people were ready to give the economic reforms more time,” says Lucia Vincent, a political scientist at San Martin National University. “But it’s the corruption question that pushed many over the edge.”
Mr. Milei raised eyebrows early this year when a questionable cryptocurrency scheme he promoted on social media collapsed, resulting in huge losses for investors and a new “cryptogate” tag for the anti-corruption president. Then, his politically powerful sister Karina Milei was accused of taking bribes from a government medicine supplier.
“People who voted him in saying, ‘He may be crazy, but he’s not corrupt,’ are now saying, ‘Instead of ridding us of la casta, it’s more of the same,’” Dr. Vincent says.
Praise for stability
Mr. Milei’s most enduring support may be coming from sectors like small-business owners and farmers, whose top priority is to keep Argentina on the economic reform path they believe only he can follow.
Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor
At the Ramos Pastas family-owned shop in Avellaneda, a working-class provincial town across the Matanza River from the capital, Patricia Ramos offers her reasons for supporting Milei – and why she hopes what he’s accomplished so far is only the beginning.
“He’s brought a stability to the economy that can serve as the foundation for getting our beautiful Argentina working and producing again,” she says. “He told us it would be rough, and he didn’t lie. But he’s also done things that tell me he can do even more if he has a chance.”
Take inflation. Standing next to a case of all manner of family-recipe pastas, Ms. Ramos relates the awe she experienced recently when she realized the can of food she was buying for her two cats was the same price she had paid a year ago.
“That may sound silly to you,” she says, “but for us it’s a small miracle.”
She’ll vote for the Milei-aligned candidate Sunday not simply in recognition of that, but in support of the labor and retirement system reforms Mr. Milei has on his to-do list.
“I’ve worked in this business since I was a little girl, so I don’t understand the people who want everything given to them,” she says. “If Milei says we need to raise the retirement age to keep the economy stable, I can live with that.”
“He’s only for the rich”
Ms. Ramos whispers her support for Mr. Milei, noting that the town consistently votes Perónist.
Indeed, not two blocks down the street from Ramos Pastas in a well-kept town square, mother Silvia Pereira and daughter Belen Nieva discuss how their lives have only gotten more difficult under Mr. Milei.
Howard LaFranchi/The Christian Science Monitor
“I know people complain that too many in Argentina don’t want to work, but in my case I’ve had to take on another job to try to get by,” says Ms. Nieva, a nursery school teacher who has added hair-cutting and weekend bartending to her repertoire.
She’s taken on the new jobs to try to make up for the lost subsidies for her two little girls and for a monthly electricity bill that skyrocketed when Mr. Milei removed energy subsidies.
“This president is proving he’s only for the rich, he’s not for the poor,” says Ms. Pereira, as she keeps an eye on her two granddaughters playing in the sun.
The proprietor of a candy and soda kiosk, Ms. Pereira says she used to do fine, and could even afford an occasional beach vacation, because people in the neighborhood had pocket change to spend.
But no more. “Milei came in, and now, ‘No hay plata,’” she says. There is no money. “Why would I vote in favor of that?”
