Milei Wins Argentine Elections, Promises Dollarization

Milei Wins in Argentina, Promises to Dollarize the Country

Javier Milei has won the Argentine elections. However, the night began with a biased leak from the La Libertad Avanza bunker: “We have a wide lead, we are ahead by 4 to 7 points,” the candidate’s team claimed before the official numbers arrived. In some polling stations, the result was staggering.

The count of polling station No. 8901 in Bell Ville, Córdoba showed 80.52% for Milei and 19.48% for Massa. This reflects the productive interior, which some interpret as a sign of Peronist decline in territories where it was previously unquestioned.

What the New President of Argentina Has Promised

The winning platform is radical: reduce the Executive to ten or eleven ministries, abolish the Central Bank, advance toward dollarization, reverse legal abortion, euthanasia, and LGBTQ+ laws, and cut public spending. This ambitious package faces an arithmetic problem: his party has few deputies in Congress and controls the Senate.

Thus, the first doubt is parliamentary, not economic. Any law touching the core of the system requires votes he currently lacks. If early projects stall, the blame will fall solely on him.

Dollarization: Ten Promises and One Uncomfortable Question

The debate repeated a decalogue in favor of dollarization: ending exchange rate risk, exporting and importing in the same currency, saving domestically, uncovering black money, curbing inflation, lowering interest rates, and reducing country risk. Countries like Panama, Ecuador, or El Salvador have functioned this way for years. This is the theory.

The objection is simple and uncomfortable: there are not enough dollars. Argentina is heavily indebted, and acquiring the necessary bills would require a brutal adjustment to the population’s purchasing power in the short term. While the country is de facto dollarized, the question remains whether the State can turn this custom into monetary policy without causing a crisis. The full breakdown of this debate, with its figures and objections, turns the issue into more than a campaign slogan.

Young Voters, Participation, and Peronist Decline

One part of the analysis focuses on demographics: more young people voted than usual, suggesting an electorate willing to break with the past. Another recalls that Milei did not win only with his own votes but with borrowed votes from a Peronism that no longer recognizes the Kirchnerist legacy. Whether this is a stable majority or a loan with a due date is the central uncertainty.

In the realm of curiosities, the new president carries a repertoire his adversaries exploit shamelessly: he is supported by Trump, Bolsonaro, and Abascal, has had some clashes with the Pope, and was even accused of cloning his dog five times, according to a TV commentator. With this material, caricature is ready; with annual inflation of 140%, urgency is too.

69% of Argentines in Spain and the Untold Narrative

According to data circulated in the debate, 69% of Argentines residing in Spain voted for Milei and 31% for Massa. This proportion is discussed with irony: almost double the votes for the winner, yet public and subsidized television found no one to interview. It is an anecdote, not statistics, but it illustrates why the result caught many newsrooms off guard.

Also circulated, without evidence, the suspicion that a Massa victory could only be explained by fraud. It was launched before any data was known and deflated on its own. In a country where institutional distrust is raw material, it is important to remember that an accusation without evidence is not analysis: it is a slogan.

With these premises, betting on Argentina’s future is going against the forecast. If Milei tames inflation and opens the economy, his experiment will be studied in universities for decades. If the adjustment falls short and Congress dismantles his program, the country will have consumed another cycle only to remain in the same place. The only certainty is that the world’s most unpredictable economic laboratory has just changed directors.