Argentina’s Milei buoyed by regional election wins

Milei’s victory far exceeded expectations

(Image credit: Luis Robayo / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

Argentine President Javier Milei came out on top in midterm elections Sunday for a third of the senate and about half the seats in the lower house. Milei’s libertarian La Libertad Avanza party took about 41% of the total vote, versus 31% for the left-leaning Peronist opposition bloc, putting his free-market reforms and radical austerity measures on a more solid footing.

Who said what

Milei’s victory, which far exceeded expectations, was projected to give his party “at least one-third of the seats in both chambers,” a “critical threshold” that allows him to “preserve his veto power and defend his sweeping decrees,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Voter turnout was just under 68%, “among the lowest recorded since the nation’s 1983 return to democracy,” The Associated Press said. But few Argentine legislative elections have “generated so much interest in Washington and Wall Street.” President Donald Trump had conditioned a $20 billion currency bailout and an additional $20 billion in private funds on Milei doing well in the midterms. “Critics — and Trump administration officials — have portrayed the move as a blatant effort to influence politics in Argentina and the rest of the region,” The Washington Post said.

What next?

“We think it is much better to use American economic power up front to stabilize a friendly government” and “set the tone in Latin America,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday. Sunday’s win “buys Milei time with investors,” the Journal said, but the “domestic pain” from his policies “has been severe.”

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.