Javier Milei, a volatile far-right libertarian who has vowed to “exterminate” inflation and take a chainsaw to the state, has been elected president of Argentina, catapulting South America’s second largest economy into an unpredictable and potentially turbulent future.
With more than 99% of votes counted, the Mick Jagger impersonating TV celebrity-turned politician, who is often compared to Donald Trump, had secured 55.69% of the vote compared with 44.3% for his rival, the centre-left finance minister Sergio Massa.
From what I've read Milei is more Tucker Carlson/Sean Hannity than Donald Trump and unbelievably that's a good thing.
So like Brazil and the USA Argentina has taken the step of electing an authoritarian populists who has made promises that will be difficult if not impossible to keep.
In fairness to the people of Argentina they're in a pretty dire situation and have been since 2002 when they defaulted on around $90 billion of external debt, most of it owed to US banks. Melei has vowed to eliminate whole government departments, to cut ties with Argentina's biggest trading partners and replace its currency with the US dollar.
Neither of the options presented to Argentina's voters in this run off election was a good one, let us hope that behind the wild rhetoric the celebrity economist at least holds off on his promise to get The Malvinas, the name the Argentinians give to the Falkland Islands, back
