Brow-beaten Milei nears Argentina's 'third year' syndrome

If all governments suffer the third year syndrome, it is even more complex for La Libertad Avanza and President Javier Milei. After all, Fernando de la Rúa did not make it through the first month of his third year after losing the 2001 midterms.

Also following a midterm defeat, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner began her third year in office in 2014 on a note of decline – with a 22 percent devaluation that January under Juan Carlos Fábrega as Central Bank governor and Axel Kicillof as economy minister.

The third year of Mauricio Macri also marked the collapse of his Presidency, despite having won the 2017 midterms. And then there’s Alberto Fernández, who had enjoyed approval ratings of close to 80 percent in the midst of the pandemic. After losing the 2021 midterms in his third year, he saw the resignation of his economy minister and the virtual transfer of power to Sergio Massa.

Milei is still some 90 days short of the start of his third year but the enormous defeat suffered last Sunday now brings forward another countdown: the 48 days to go for the October 26 midterms at national level.

When the LLA was forecasting Peronism to win by less than five percent in Buenos Aires Province, they were betting on Sunday’s vote being a sort of first round, as in 2023 when Sergio Massa topped Javier Milei by a margin of seven percent. Those position would go on to be reversed in the November run-off with a difference of 11 percent in favour of the president-elect.

Next month will not be like that awaited run-off. The big difference is that the candidate back then is today already president. The consequences of his economic policies are known. At the same time, the expectation of an improved October result is maintained, betting on the Peronist mayors not mobilising as much when their territories not at stake, as well as a lack of candidates at national level as in other opportunities. But a difference of over 13 points in favour of Peronism cannot only be attributed to the mayoral capacity of mobilisation so that in the run-up to the October 26 midterms, bad news is more probable than good both in the economic sphere and with denunciations of corruption.

At the same time, and beyond the denials, there is speculation that the Cabinet changes expected between October 26 and the elected candidates taking their seats on December 10 will be brought forward. The number of ministers who were missing on the stage next to Milei on election night have opened up speculations of every kind.

That Milei recognised errors in his Sunday night speech seemed geared to a belief that these were related to electoral or communication strategy. Immediately afterwards he insisted that he would maintain (and intensify) the policies which, as it happens, were what led to that electoral defeat.

Thus begins a winding road for the government as to what to correct and what to maintain, before that fateful syndrome of the third year when most governments are left without oxygen, when the hopes which gave them origin fade away in contrast to the results and even when the same things for which they were applauded are criticised.

In his speech, Milei attributed the triumph to the territorial efficiency of the Peronist machine, when Peronism has not won midterms in the last 20 or 30 years. The 47 percent for the Peronists transcends them. The Peronist candidates were the vehicle the voters found to punish Javier Milei and his policies.

Milei will not reap different results with the same policies. If the third year was highly complex even for those winning midterms like Mauricio Macri, the forecasts for 2026 are gloomy indeed.

There is now the added difficulty that he might have a presidential candidate facing him, a doubly triumphant Kicillof (over Milei and over Cristina Fernández de Kirchner). The chant “Axel leadership” was repeated several times on Sunday night, plus the fact that La Cámpora was not a protagonist in the scenario in La Plata and, more symbolic yet, that the Buenos Aires Province Partido Justicialista chairman Máximo Kirchner did not even show up (with the implausible excuse that he had to stay with his mother)... this all indicative that Peronism has already resolved its 2027 PASO primary.

The low visibility of Juan Grabois, Fernández de  Kirchner’s other political godson who aspires to compete for the presidential candidacy (in the style of Chile’s Gabriel Boric), in that scenario contrasted with Sergio Massa, who until 2023 imagined the Buenos Aires Province governor to be a competitor for the Peronist presidential candidacy and is now looking like an important ally.

Milei will have another economist of his calibre (and not the “Soviet dwarf” but a competitor for the presidency) as his rival in public debate with the economy and the consequences of the government’s economic policies as the core of the controversy. Now that denunciations of corruption weigh over La Libertad Avanza, there could not be a worse opponent due to Kicillof’s fame for honesty in contrast to many officials of the governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner.

A steep slope for Milei. The argument that his 34 percent is a floor is destroyed when adding the votes of Milei to those of Patricia Bullrich in the 2023 elections in Buenos Aires Province, topping 50 percent. More than an ascent, as Sebastián Pareja wished to sell, it was a clear descent. It remains to be seen how dear PRO will sell their votes as from December in the new Congress since LLA’s illusion of a third of deputies of their own has ended up fading away.

Worth a paragraph is questioning the accuracy of opinion polls as tools of measurement if they have so consistently shown support for Milei to be close to half when in each of the provincial elections thus far he has been picking up around 30 percent. And just as well that there is voting every two years to verify on how much support can government policies really count.