In the presence of several leaders, conservative or nationalist leaders, the Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelensky, the ultraliberal Javier Milei is inaugurated Sunday president of Argentina, which is preparing for harsh adjustments to get the economy out of a crisis without END. At midday, Javier Gerardo Milei, 53, will become the twelfth president of Argentina since the return of democracy 40 years ago, crowning his spectacular rise. Elected deputy in 2021, the economist, once a popular panelist on TV, overturned Argentine politics by sweeping away the traditional parties.
After taking the oath of office in Parliament, Milei will deliver his first speech as president. Symbolically not in front of the parliamentarians but from the steps of the Parliament where he called on his account
Sunday morning, a moderate crowd gradually gathered on Parliament Square, a mixture of Argentine national team jerseys and Argentine flags, under a blazing early sun. He will then travel, by convertible, or even partly on foot, the two kilometers to Casa Rosada, the presidency, where he will receive foreign dignitaries, then the swearing-in of his government. A team at this stage restricted to nine ministers, in accordance with its promise of state austerity.
One certainty: inflation again
The president-elect indicated that he would convene an extraordinary session of Parliament in the coming days to present a first block of laws. Devaluation of the peso, the national currency, notoriously overvalued? First budget cuts, particularly public worksites in the crosshairs? Restriction, or even ban, on monetary issuance by the Central Bank, which it ultimately wants to eliminate?
“Electroshock” or “controlled shock”, the first Milei measures and their degree have been the subject of speculation in recent days, without anything filtering from the president-elect’s team. Only one certainty: inflation, already intolerable at 143% over one year, will continue for the third largest economy in Latin America.
“The new thing for people will be ‘free’ prices for the first time in a long time, with the end of the so-called ‘regulated price’ programs” that the outgoing government (center-left) negotiated as best they could with suppliers, believes for AFP Viktor Beker, economist from the University of Belgrano. “Hence certainly a sharp rise in prices. It is very likely that inflation in December will exceed that of November (+8.3%, Editor’s note) and that of January that of December,” he adds.
Immediately after his resounding victory, Javier Milei warned that there would be “no room for lukewarmness or half-measures”. But also dampened certain expectations, warning that inflation would not be brought under control before “18 to 24 months”.
Will Argentinian wallets still be able to support it? Many young people, who made up the core of Milei’s electorate, told AFP these days that they were ready to give him time “because the situation is not easy”. “We have a lot of expectations, it’s a change! But it’s a deep crisis, we have to give it time,” Maria Guazu, 60, from Tucuman, told AFP on Sunday near the Congress. more than 1,200 km away, for the nomination.
Zelensky prestigious guest
Remaining off-screen, for the moment, certain controversial postures of candidate Milei: his opposition to legalized abortion in 2021, or his denial of climate change as a “responsibility of man”. What matters is the economy, and straightening out the budgetary accounts, with a difficult to believe objective of “balance at the end of 2024” (the deficit was 2.4% of GDP at the end of 2022).
Carlos Felipe Jaramillo, vice president of the World Bank for Latin America, met these days with the Milei team, and said he had “a very similar diagnosis” on the “need to attack the budgetary problem, the key cause inflation.” But he also said “the concern (of the WB) about the problem of poverty, and its possible accentuation in the short term”, in a country where 40% already live below the poverty line.
Milei’s inauguration will take place under the benevolent gaze of nationalist right-wing leaders or politicians, who very early on had expressed support and affinity for the elected Argentine ultra-liberal: such as the former Brazilian far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, the Prime Hungarian Minister Viktor Orban, the leader of the Spanish far-right group Vox, Santiago Abascal.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Argentina on Sunday, from where he announced, on his X account, that he had a telephone interview with French President Emmanuel Macron. Zelensky spoke with Milei at the end of November, and “thanked him for his clear position. No balance between good and evil. Just clear support for Ukraine.”
Among the other heads of state and government present, the King of Spain Felipe VI, and Argentina’s neighbors: the Uruguayan Luis Lacalle Pou, the Chilean Gabriel Boric, the Paraguayan Santiago Peña. The Brazilian Lula, strongly criticized by Milei in the past, sent his head of diplomacy. France is represented by the Minister of Transformation and Public Service, Stanislas Guerini.