Libertarian economist Javier Milei has been the wildcard of Argentinian politics in recent years, rising as a strident TV star who shifted the country’s Overton window to the right — challenging the center-right opposition coalition as too weak and timid to take on the ruling center-left Peronist government.
But despite a strong showing in the 2021 Buenos Aires city midterm elections and competitive numbers in the polls, his 2023 presidential campaign has so far proven chaotic, struggling to form a large enough pool of competitive candidates for a nationwide election.
After years of railing against the “political caste,” Mr. Milei couldn’t find enough allies to run in gubernatorial races across the country. When he did, his candidates weren’t well-known enough to be competitive. In many cases, they ended up with less than 5 percent of the vote.
In the key province of Buenos Aires, Mr. Milei’s first choice for governor dropped out just a week before the deadline for candidates to register. Several former allies, such as right-wing economist José Luis Espert, abandoned him to join the center-right coalition led by former President Mauricio Macri.
The heap of problems piled pressure on Milei’s team, led by his sister, Karina Milei, and political adviser Carlos Kikuchi. The two have long fended off discontent from within the coalition. While the former was attacked for her fondness of witchcraft and parapsychology, the latter was accused of demanding money from provincial candidates in exchange for Mr. Milei’s support.
Last night, just three days before the candidate registration deadline, Mr. Kikuchi resigned as Mr. Milei’s campaign chief in Buenos Aires, sparking more rumors of internal rifts — though Mr. Milei played them down, saying it was just a bureaucratic decision and Mr. Kikuchi would register as a legislative candidate instead.
The combination of poor provincial results and internal conflict has been enthusiastically received in the center-right Together for Change coalition, which hopes it will end up being perceived as the pragmatic option to unseat the ruling administration.
If primary results on August 13 show Mr. Milei’s far-right ticket lagging in third place behind the center-left and center-right options, a number of voters could switch to the center-right when the proper election takes place in October in order to secure victory, Together for Change analysts hope.
But the campaign has only just begun, and Mr. Milei will have high inflation and voter discontent on his side, while others will highlight some of his most unpopular extremist beliefs in an effort to quash him.
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