“He put the country back on the path of progress”

In a campaign closing at full speed and with a strong staging, the libertarian Javier Milei closed his campaign at the Movistar Arena. In the event, which began two hours later than expected, they could see hats allusive to Donald Trump and posters with chainsaws, vindicating the brutal adjustment plan proposed by the libertarian candidate. In the stadium a reversal of Chayanne’s song “Provocamé” could be heard, but asking for “Vote for Milei and make him dollarize.”

At the moment of taking the floor, Milei returned to her repeated anti-caste speech, charging against Larreta and the radicals, but dedicated a central part of his speech to vindicate the “legacy” of Carlos Menem: “Throughout these 100 years we had opportunities to go out. In the 1990s, a man from La Rioja came to power who, with shortcomings, put the country back on the path of progress. In that decade there was no inflation, the country was growing, investments flourished. Telephones arrived everywhere, electricity returned, gas returned, inflation disappeared and for the first time in decades we had a healthy currency. The fact of having a healthy currency allowed us to have credit, that we could buy a house, that we could buy a car. But when the political class saw that this model was not useful for them to continue stealing, they decided to change it.”

A particular balance of the Menemist decadethe same one that left millions of unemployed people the decade of adjustment and the “pizza and champagne” with which precisely the “caste” that Milei says she criticizes celebrated the auction of the country on the hunger of the people. It is also a curious reading, because if the poor people in the streets challenged anything in 2001, in addition to the De la Rua government, it was precisely Menem and his legacy. “The political staff”, rather than throwing him out, celebrated his two governments of “carnal relations” with the United States and the looting of the country. Not only that, all those who ruled after dedicated themselves to maintaining the core of their privatizing legacy, without ever reversing the profound regressive consequences of that decade for our country

Not only an emblem of the political caste like Menem was thoroughly exalted in the rightist’s speech. Also there were praiseworthy words for the Macri government: “In 2015 we had an opportunity again. An outsider came to power with a very clear premise: Let’s change. Once again, we Argentines had the possibility of breaking with the impoverishing model and the model of the present state, which only benefits those who live off the State”. For Milei it seems that there are castes… and castes. In this case, defending the same president who priced and adjusting retirees through a large part of the working people, who chanted “Macri gato” in soccer stadiums, were hated.

Bolsonaro’s friend and Trump advocate left another important definition throughout his speech: “This disaster is not the fault of foreign powers, of honest businessmen, of good Argentines, it is not the fault of the countryside. It is purely and exclusively from the politicians who have been ruling us for decades.” This affirmation accounts for something that the presidential pre-candidate of the Left-Unity Front, Myriam Bregman, has been denouncing in several of her television appearances, and that is that while the libertarian rails against (certain) political personnel, at the same time he dedicates himself to washing the economic power of “guilt and charge”, centrally responsible for the course of adjustment, capital flight, low wages. The true owners of the country are for Milei “honest businessmen” and the Fund and its interests in Washington would have nothing to do with the fate of dependency and backwardness to which they drag us ever deeper.. These are the same sectors that time and again have organized everything from genocidal coups to brutal devaluations of workers’ wages.

Mindful of the consequences of the brutal adjustment he has in mind, Milei also appealed to the strong hand, speaking of a new security doctrine: “he who makes them pays them”. Anticipating the future resistance to the adjustments that she plans in case of reaching the Government, Milei is already emboldening with a speech that gives her, even more, a free stone to the easy trigger and to the repression against workers, women and the poor people.

The dollarization plan drew attention due to its absence in the speech that he agitated throughout the campaign. Beyond the fact that it was heard in the background music, it is possible that before the rain of criticism from the same economic power that sees this plan as unfeasible, the libertarian has preferred to moderate in that regard. Lots of shouting, but faced with the challenges of the big media and businessmen, bow your head?

In the countdown to the PASO, with Menemist fervor, the libertarian closed his campaign, which does not promise anything good for the popular sectors. Against these unfiltered right-wing discourses, which sought to impose a campaign run to the right, but also against the false promises of those who are the government today and legitimized the great scam that is the debt contracted under the Macri government, It is essential to respond with strong support for the left, the only one that does not adapt and that, as Myriam Bregman put it, does not fall into promises, but rather raises a commitment to fight, in the streets, against the present adjustment and the what they prepare