Argentina is voting Sunday in a midterm election that will serve as a crucial referendum on President Javier Milei’s ambitious austerity policies and, potentially, a US$40-billion rescue package from the Donald Trump administration.
Voting stations close at 6pm local time and results are expected later Sunday evening. Argentines are electing representatives for half the seats – 127 – in the lower house of Congress along with 24 of the nation’s 72 senators. Official results will be reported province-by-province, rather than as a single nationwide figure.
Two years after surging to a presidential victory, Milei and his party are suddenly against the ropes. The libertarian leader has succeeded in bringing down inflation and curbing poverty. But his economic recovery is stalling, salaries have failed to keep up with cost-of-living increases and the unemployment rate is higher than when Milei took office.
Three corruption scandals, meanwhile, have dented his image as an anti-graft crusader from outside the establishment he promised to vanquish.
A landslide defeat for Milei’s La Libertad Avanza, or LLA, party in a September local election has upped the stakes. The losses in Buenos Aires Province – home to more than a third of Argentines – sparked investor fears over Milei’s standing ahead of the midterms, prompting a currency slide and sell-off of sovereign bonds.
Two weeks later, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent stepped in to prop up the peso, but the currency has continued to weaken. Bessent said Sunday morning that the US won’t lose taxpayer dollars in Argentina.
“We are supporting a US ally. There will be no taxpayer losses,” Bessent said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “This is a swap line. This is not a bailout.”
Now investors are looking to see if Milei, who currently has about 15 percent of seats in Congress, can at a minimum secure the one-third of seats necessary to ensure his veto power. Opposition politicians in recent months have overturned several of his vetoes, moves government officials have decried as “attacks” on flagship fiscal policies that have delivered a budget surplus.
“We need one-third in one chamber in order to be able to block these attacks, that is something that we’re going to get no matter if we win by five points or if we lose by seven,” Economy Minister Luis Caputo said at an Atlantic Council event in Washington earlier this month. “We do need a simple majority in both chambers to pass all the reforms that we want to go for, and we’re not going to get that regardless if we win the midterm elections by 15 points.”
For his part, Caputo has repeatedly denied that the election will drive any economic policy changes – win or lose. On paper, the Argentine peso floats within a range that gets bigger every day. In practice, both Milei and Donald Trump’s governments have been propping the currency that investors see as overvalued, an argument Caputo rejects, citing the continued growth of exports.
Still, market speculation has brewed that the US rescue package is tied to some change in currency policy, even as Bessent has expressed support for the current framework.
Another key question is whether the Argentine Central Bank will start to accumulate foreign reserves after missing a target set in the country’s US$20-billion agreement with the International Monetary Fund.
Along with direct peso purchases, the US support includes a US$20-billion currency swap line and a pledge for an additional US$20 billion in financing from Wall Street banks that is still under negotiation.
The stakes have only increased since Milei met Trump at the White House on October 14.
“If he wins we’re staying with him, and if he doesn’t win we’re gone,” Trump said during the meeting.
Whether Trumps stays or goes, Milei will attempt to push through major economic and tax reforms once the new Congress takes office December 10. For now, his team is downplaying the make-or-break drama that’s unfolded in recent weeks, while noting they’ll need to work with other parties to pass legislation that would reflect Milei’s political strength.
“These midterm elections are probably getting too much attention,” Caputo said. Win or lose, Milei’s administration “will have to do a lot of work to build the necessary coalitions among the governors, deputies, senators so that we can pass these laws that are so necessary for our country.”
by Patrick Gillespie, Bloomberg
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