Argentina votes in local elections that will test President Milei’s support

Buenos Aires: Votes were being cast across Buenos Aires on Sunday in local elections that will test Argentina’s President Javier Milei’s political strength as he seeks to steer mainstream conservatives toward his radical libertarian platform.

The election results could boost Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party, or LLA, in crucial national midterms later this year. Some 2.5 million people are eligible to vote in Sunday’s election, in which half of the 60 legislative seats are up for grabs.

A former TV pundit known for his angry rants against Argentina’s political class, Milei founded LLA just four years ago, drawing a motley crew of political novices into his anti-establishment agenda.

Seeking to take a “chainsaw” to state spending with just a tiny minority in Congress over his past 1 1/2-year in office — his party holds just 15 per cent of seats in the lower house and 10 per cent in the Senate — Milei has been compelled to compromise with former President Mauricio Macri, the scion of a wealthy family and the face of Argentina’s conservative political establishment.

That uneasy alliance has faltered in recent months. The two have clashed over Milei’s effort to install a judge embroiled in corruption scandals on the Supreme Court, among other things.

In Macri’s stronghold of Buenos Aires, where his PRO (Republican Proposal) party has governed uninterrupted since 2007, Milei appears set on crushing his erstwhile partner altogether, analysts say.

“The government needs to claim dominance and the leadership over the whole spectrum of the centre-right,” said Juan Cruz Díaz, managing director of Buenos Aires-based political consultancy Cefeidas Group.

At his closing campaign rally last week, Milei attacked Macri’s party in an expletive-sprinkled rant. “I’m not going to waste time describing all the inconsistencies of the failed (PRO) party because they’re fighting for fourth place,” he told supporters.