A grueling election campaign full of surprises

The only certainty that can be derived from the electoral thriller of recent months is that anything is politically possible in Argentina. After the Peronist government was severely punished in the 2021 mid-term parliamentary elections, the established opposition alliance Juntos por el Cambio, consisting of the Propuesta Republicana (PRO), Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and Coalición Cívica (CC) parties, was certain of victory in the 2023 presidential elections. So certain, in fact, that the internal power struggle for the candidacy was fought fiercely and with all possible means until the primaries in August 2023. The eccentric outsider Javier Milei had clearly been underestimated and the internal squabbles had led to the external impact being criminally neglected. In the primaries, Milei surprisingly fought his way to first place, followed by Juntos por el Cambio (Patricia Bullrich) and Unión por la Patria (Sergio Massa). The voters seemed to have clearly spoken out in favour of change and against the incumbent Peronist government; all the more surprisingly, Sergio Massa prevailed in the elections on 22 October thanks to the mobilization of the entire Peronist machinery. Quite a few already saw him as the certain winner and so the outcome of the election remained uncertain until the last moment and the election campaign was highly exciting. But who is the future president Javier Milei and how did the political newcomer manage to inflict one of the worst electoral defeats in the history of powerful Peronism?

The full-length publication is only available in German.