Milei talks up Casa Rosada hopes: 'If I get to the run-off, I'm the next president'

National lawmaker Javier Milei has predicted that he will be Argentina's next president if he manages to make it through to the second round run-off in 2023.

The La Libertad Avanza deputy, speaking in an interview after the main opposition coalition, Juntos por el Cambio, said it would not consider incorporating him into its grouping, said he was confident in his chances of reaching the Casa Rosada.

"If I reach the second round, I am the next president of Argentina," Milei told Radio Mitre on Saturday. "If I reach the second round, I beat everyone. No-one can beat me."

Addressing the Juntos por el Cambio statement that accused Milei of seeking to break up the coalition's unity, the national lawmaker said that the decision to name him specifically in it was a nervous response "to the growth of La Libertad Avanza" across the country.

"What the letter did was to show Juntos por el Cambio as a very weak front, which is not in conditions to be in government," fired off the libertarian.

"They don't want me to compete, they want to take me out of the competition, they want me out of the system. They hate competition in democracy. They want to be the only opponents, because otherwise they will lose their jobs," claimed the deputy, who managed to take 13 percent of votes in Buenos Aires City in last year's midterms in his first run for office.

Referencing disquiet expressed by PRO leader Patricia Bullrich over the decision not to consider recruiting him into the opposition's fold, Milei said the former security minister "goes straight ahead, tells the truth and that generates a huge noise within Juntos por el Cambio."

Milei then went on to criticise a number of influential opposition leaders, including Buenos Aires City Mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who he accused of having a "pathological obsession" with him.

"He has a team dedicated to persecuting me and dirtying me," alleged the economist.

Finally, he declared that there should be a "reorganisation of the political system: on one side, the collectivists, and on the other, those who respect individual freedom."

– TIMES/PERFIL