In one corner of the ring stands Javier Milei, 52, self-described former tantric sex coach, outsider anarcho-capitalist and frontrunner in Argentina’s upcoming presidential elections; in the other, his compatriot Pope Francis, 86, world champion of the poor, repeatedly derided by Argentina’s likely next president as “a fucking communist” and “the representative of the evil one on Earth” for promoting the doctrine of “social justice” to aid the underprivileged.
Milei, a political unknown until 2020, has pledged to wage a “cultural battle” to transform Argentina into a libertarian paradise where capitalist efficiency replaces social assistance, taxes are reduced to a minimum and cash-strapped individuals are allowed to sell their body organs on the open market.
From Rome, Pope Francis has expressed grave concern about the rise of such callous policies in his home country. “The extreme right always reconstructs itself, it is the triumph of selfishness over communitarianism,” he said in a television interview in March when asked about Argentina’s upcoming elections.
In words that seemed to be referring to Milei, the only candidate in the 22 October vote with no political experience prior to 2021, the pope added: “I am terrified of saviours of the nation without a political party history.”
The pope’s doctrine of social justice is synonymous to theft in Milei’s Liberty Advances party because it relies on tax revenues. “Jesus didn’t pay taxes,” Milei once tweeted, tagging the Pope’s official account.
In a vein-popping victory speech after Argentina’s open primaries on 13 August, a tousle-haired Milei promised the demise of government benefits because they are “based on that atrocity that says that where there is a need, a right is born, its maximum expression being that aberration called social justice”.
Milei has trolled Francis with repetitive toxic tweets calling him a “communist turd”, a “piece of shit” and accusing the pontiff of “preaching communism to the world”.
Juan Grabois, a progressive Peronist with close links to the pontiff, and who lost the Peronist candidacy to current economy minister Sergio Massa, calls Milei a “false prophet” but attributes his rise to Argentina’s dire economic crisis.
“With inflation over 115% plus a 25% drop in the purchasing power of informal workers in the last seven years, voters would have to possess impossible political maturity to vote again for those who have failed them so completely,” Grabois told the Observer.
Voters disenchanted with both the rightwing Together for Change party, which held office up to 2019, and the incumbent Peronists have migrated in droves to newcomer Milei. “The music of the pied piper sounds sweet to those who have lost all hope. But there’s no point in blaming voters or the pied piper himself, we have to address the mistakes made by those of us who have a humanist concept of politics,” says Grabois.
Humanist is not a term that could be applied to Milei’s economics. Apart from legalising the sale of body organs, his spiky agenda proposes “dynamiting” the Central Bank, abolishing Argentina’s tuition-free public education system and disbanding free public health services. Milei is also treading fearlessly into anti-woke territory saying he will reinstate the ban on abortion, legalised in 2020, shut down the ministry of women, gender and diversity, as well as the ministries of science – “climate change is a socialist lie” – health, education, labour and public works, and will legalise the sale of firearms.
Despite this heady mix, Milei is broadly considered the undisputed shoo-in president appealing particularly to young underprivileged men. Milei took 30% of the vote in the open primaries earlier this month against 28% for Patricia Bullrich of United for Change and 27% for Peronist candidate Massa. Milei’s rise has been nothing short of mesmerising. A long-time economist for Argentinian billionaire Eduardo Eurnekian, he became a television star five years ago as a wild-haired economist and tantric sex coach who boasted on air about his sexual stamina and his taste for threesomes, assuring him wall-to-wall appearances on daytime talkshows.
These televised outbursts have many wondering if Milei could become unhinged under the stress of an eventual presidency.
“What happens if an unstable country is ruled by an unstable leader?”, asks journalist Juan González, author of a Milei biography titled El Loco (The Madman) published last month. “I’m worried he will actually try to push through his impracticable economic theories further devastating the economy and provoking violent social unrest.”
Milei is aware of the likelihood of violent street protests. “I’m going to put the leaders of those who throw stones in jail and if they surround the Casa Rosada [the presidential palace] they’re going to have to carry me out dead,” he said recently. More pragmatically, he has announced plans to incorporate the military into battling the “new threats” of narco gangs, human traffickers and possibly internal strife.
In a country that will celebrate four decades of uninterrupted democracy after decades of military rule when the new president takes office on 10 December 10, the prospect of the military reassuming a role in “internal conflicts” is raising alarms.
“The remiliarisation of security and intelligence is being proposed with military commandos ready for quick strategic intervention at the national level: this idea of national security is very problematic,” said Paula Litvachky, director of the Centre for Legal and Social Studies human rights organisation.
The pope has not said if Milei’s tirades have got under his skin. “I know they say things about me but I ignore it for my mental health,” he said in a television interview. “I will pray for them.”
This story was supported in part by a grant from the Pulitzer Center
