Milei vows to end Kirchnerism, lets rip at Kicillof during campaign rally

President Javier Milei let rip with a tirade of insults, bold claims and hyperbole on Thursday as he called on voters in Buenos Aires Province to back his La Libertad Avanza party and alliance in next month’s regional election.

Addressing a crowd of supporters at a campaign rally in La Plata, the capital of Buenos Aires Province, Milei vowed Thursday to end Kirchnerite rule in the nation’s most-populous region. He called on voters to put a “brake” on the Peronist opposition, which rules the region. 

Claiming his rivals are afraid of “being crushed by the violets” – a reference to the colour for the alliance his La Libertad Avanza paarty has sealed with PRO – he accused his political rivals of turning Buenos Aires Province into “a national disgrace” and told voters change is coming.

"The Province of Buenos Aires should be the spearhead of national wealth, but it has been transformed into a bastion of backwardness," Milei said during the event, consolidating the confrontational tone that the ruling party's campaign will adopt in the country's main electoral district and for the nationwide vote in October.

Getting personal, he trained his ire directly on Governor Axel Kicilloff, who he described as a “communist dwarf.” The President is often mocked for his own height, making the comment all the more surprising.

Milei then called on residents of Buenos Aires Province to back his party and “end” Kirchnerism once and for all in next month’s crunch election.

“How wonderful to see so many lions free to devour Kirchnerism at the polls,” he said at the start of his speech.

 

Extrovert entrance

Milei, 54, made a typically extroverted entrance at the event, jumping with fans and storming through the crowd of supporters to the main stage before his address.

It was the President’s second incursion into the key electoral battleground in a week. Last week he visited Villa Celina, in La Matanza, where he posed for a photograph with a controversial banner reading: “Kirchnerism, nunca más” (“Kirchnerism, never again.”)

The phrase is a reference to the famous “Nunca más” slogan used in the aftermath of the 1976-1983 military dictatorship, considered to be an emblematic phrase of Argentina’s human rights movement.

The La Libertad Avanza leader was accompanied on Thursday by a number of key figures from his party and several from PRO, the centre-right party of ex-president Mauricio Macri, which has agreed to join forces to create an alliance for upcoming elections in Buenos Aires Province and Buenos Aires City.

Among those flanking Milei were PRO’s leader in the region, Cristian Ritondo, and national deputy Diego Santilli. Also in attendance was La Libertad Avanza’s top man in the region, Sebastián Pareja, and libertarian national deputy José Luis Espert, who will top the alliance’s electoral slate in the region for the national midterm elections in October.

Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei – the mastermind of La Libertad Avanza's election campaign – has authorised PRO figures to join the party's coordination committee in Buenos Aires Province to ensure greater coordination.

High levels of security were deployed for Thursday’s rally.

 

Transfer popularity

The ruling party plans to put President Milei on the campaign trail on a regular basis, hoping to transfer his personal popularity to its less popular and often unknown local candidates.

To that end, the head of state is expected to headline one event in the region per week during the final stretch of the campaign.

Milei is expected to visit the city of Junín next Tuesday, when he will appear with the party’s national candidates. On Wednesday of the following week, August 27, he will lead an event to be held in or around the Greater Buenos Aires district of Lomas de Zamora. 

The President is also expected to attend a rally in Moreno (another Greater Buenos Aires district) on September 3, accompanied by several Cabinet officials.

Promotional flyers and images for Thursday's event presented La Libertad Avanza’s candidates in the region as action hero stars and an elite commando unit, utilising slogans such as “the eight indestructibles” and “he [Milei] chose them for the toughest battle.”

 

Espert tops list

With the deadline for naming the candidates for the party lists expiring tomorrow, the top names for the national lists of La Libertad Avanza in both Buenos Aires City and Province have all but been confirmed.

José Luis Espert will lead La Libertad Avanza's candidate list for national deputies in Buenos Aires Province, party officials have confirmed.

"José Luis, the professor, is the leader and will be the visible face of that other great team which will go to the National Congress," said Sebastián Pareja, LLA’s organiser in Buenos Aires Province in a radio interview. He added that "the number two will be a woman … from LLA."

Pareja said the third spot would likely go to PRO’s Santilli, who has been a big supporter of Milei, followed by another female.

 "The only thing that's certain is Espert, that's been decided for months. The other spots have more to do with strategy than anything else," explained Pareja.

Espert, a sitting national deputy, has previously flirted with both PRO and La Libertad Avanza. An economist who often insults his rivals, he often calls for tougher crime and security policies.

True to form, in chats to reporters before Thursday’s event, he called for a “deep reform of security” and “the state,” declaring that eight or nine provincial ministries were “superfluous.”

The official also said that significant changes were needed for the health system, as well as in education: "Children don't know how to add or subtract, they don't know what the Constitution is. We have to make all these reforms in the province of Buenos Aires, and we will begin to do so in 2025."

In addition, Espert fiercely defended Milei's performance in economic matters: "The situation is improving every day because we are pulling it out of the enormous hole that Kirchnerism left it in. Everything is improving, very slowly," he said.

 

Vedette tapped

According to reporting by the Noticias Argentinas news agency, vedette and television host Karen Reichardt will second Espert on the list of lower house candidates for Buenos Aires Province, with economist Agustín Monteverde as the other senatorial candidate in the City under Security Minister Patricia Bullrich. 

Reichardt, 56, is a star of the screen, having starred in several lowbrow comedies in the last century such as Brigada Cola (1992), Tachero nocturno (1993) and Despertar de pasiones (1994). She also made a steamy appearance in Playboy magazine. A pet-lover, she today hosts the television programme Amores Perros.

Monteverde, meanwhile, has a doctorate in economics from the UBA University of Buenos Aires, making a subsequent career as a bank and business consultant and a professor at CEMA University, as well as being a board member of the Fundación Libertad y Progreso. 

He has made frequent media appearances, invariably defending the government’s economic policies and Milei’s libertarian ideas.

 

– TIMES with agencies