NOVEMBER 16, 2023
COMMENTARY
On Sunday, Argentine voters will elect their next president in a runoff campaign that has been the most divisive in decades. Sergio Massa, Argentina’s current economy minister for the current center-left government and leader of the Union of the Fatherland coalition, will face Javier Milei, an anti-establishment and far-right libertarian of the Liberty Advances coalition. The vote has the potential to permanently alter the political landscape in one of the world’s largest agricultural producers that is also home to large reserves of lithium, a crucial ingredient in the production of electronic batteries. Polls predict a tight race, with the majority of pollsters giving Milei a slight edge.
The winner will inherit an economy mired in recession. Argentina has been battered by a historic drought this year, as well as by failing fiscal and monetary policies, high debt, and an inflation rate of more than 140 percent—up from 79 percent when Massa took over the Ministry of Economy in August 2022. Two-fifths of the population in Argentina lives in poverty, leading a growing number of young Argentines to emigrate to countries such as Spain. To make matters even…
