By Atilio Borón on October 23, 2023
Javier Millei, photo: red 92
Yesterday Argentinians pulled back at the polls from rejecting Peronism altogether and its struggle to advance with the $45 billion dollar IMF loan around its neck. While polls had the Bolsonaro like Javier Milei with a considerable lead the Peronist candidate Sergio Massa emerged with over 36% of the vote with Milei coming in second with 30% and rightist Patricia Bullrich coming in third with 23%. The two top vote getters will now face off on the November 19 election for the presidency. – editorial
Last Wednesday Javier Milei closed his campaign. The scenery was typical of rock shows or big boxing or wrestling mania matches. His entrance to the Movistar Arena parodied the spectacular entrance of boxers to the big stadiums, entering the ring in the middle of the audience surrounded by a group of bodyguards and in the middle of the shouting and the overflowing enthusiasm of the audience, conveniently bombarded by a flashing set of lights and thunderous musical themes. The stimulus prior to their arrival was an endless series of apocalyptic images of atomic explosions and large buildings imploding and collapsing amidst gigantic clouds of dust and ashes. There is nothing original about this exaltation of violence and death, since it is typical of all fascisms, those of yesterday as well as those of today. The only thing missing was the addition of an image with a sign saying “long live death” for the setting of Milei’s closing act to perfectly emulate that of his gloomy European predecessors.
However, after that initial moment, the audience – mostly lower middle class young people, although there were a few who revealed a more plebeian origin – seemed to become lethargic and was installed in a passive and silent mode, only interrupted when Milei signed some of the most bellicose passages of the text he was reading with his shouts and his bombastic gestures. If it were not for these interpellations of the leader of La Libertad Avanza, the attitude of the audience did not seem to be typical of a political act.
It is obvious that a read speech rarely has the capacity to arouse the enthusiasm generated by the vibrant words of a mass leader, and this was irrefutably proven yesterday. Especially when not a single new idea emerged from his reading, but rather the reiteration of his well-known catchphrases: denunciation of the caste, of the enveloped journalists and the impoverishing politicians, all parasites of a State that will have to be destroyed with a chainsaw.
The text was seasoned with a few statistical data, thrown out at random and without rhyme or reason and, above all, mostly false. For example, when he said that thanks to the work of the generation of the 80’s and the predominance of liberal ideas, Argentina had become “the first world power” at the end of the 19th century, something that amazingly went unnoticed by the rest of the nations.
In another part of his speech he departed from his written text to vociferate that Argentina’s decline had begun when, one hundred and seven years ago, the luminous ideas of liberalism were abandoned. Although he did not elaborate on the subject, his words highlighted the visceral rejection that this fascist demagogue feels for the democratization process that in this country began exactly in 1916, one hundred and seven years ago, with the election of Hipólito Yrigoyen.
In short, a poor speech, flooded by a gimmicky rhetoric, without any concrete proposal and without any reference to the issues that had marked his campaign a few weeks ago: dollarization, the closing of ministries, the attack to state institutions (Conicet, universities, social security system, public health, etc.). I have the impression that the audience, lethargic (I would almost say bored) was waiting for something more and only showed occasional outbursts of enthusiasm when, from the podium, the speaker urged them to do so by appealing to his unbridled gestures and intemperate shouts.
Milei did not take the opportunity to explain to his supporters what would happen if he decided to tariff public universities, thus fulfilling one of his campaign promises. But in such a case he would have had to give very bad news by informing what students would have to pay once they would charge fees and set the cost of their tuition in line with that of private universities.
According to a report published in El Cronista last August, the monthly fees at different private universities are as follows. At the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires (ITBA) “the value corresponding to the month of August for the Engineering career is around $ 320,688.” In other careers, such as “Data Science and Business Management, the values are around $ 263,736. In the case of the Universidad de San Andrés (UdeSA), “the fee for the Digital Business career is $ 276,000”. At the Universidad Católica Argentina (UCA) “the Political Science course charges a monthly fee of $ 120,000″. In Communication careers, such as Digital and Interactive Advertising or Journalism, the current fee is $ 137,000. And at the Torcuato Di Tella University, the undergraduate degree in Economics has a monthly fee of $ 245,000.”
It does not take a Nobel Prize in Economics to conclude that these figures are absolutely unattainable for the audience that filled the Movistar Arena institutions.
In practice, Milei would have had to paraphrase what María Eugenia Vidal said a few years ago: “the poor do not make it to university”. But changing the verb tense and making a confession: “with my government the poor will never get to a university”. Although, of course, there are truths that kill even the highest politicians, especially if they are campaigning.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English