Celebrities on the far right around the world are ecstatic about Javier Milei’s resounding election win in Argentina, which analysts believe will make Buenos Aires a new battleground for the radical right’s populist agenda.
Following their Argentinean ally’s stunning victory over Peronist finance minister Sergio Massa by nearly 3 million votes in Sunday’s presidential election, Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro spearheaded the celebrations. While the former president of Brazil celebrated a win for “honesty, progress, and freedom,” the former US president predicted that Milei would “truly make Argentina great again.” Milei’s victory was expected by supporters of Bolsonarista and Mileísta to be the first of three right-wing victories that would see Trump and Bolsonaro return to power in 2024 and 2026.
In his first interview following his victory on Monday, Milei stated he would visit the US and Israel before taking the oath of office on December 10 alongside his ultra-conservative vice-president-elect, Victoria Villarruel. Milei has pledged to relocate Argentina’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
Bolsonaro shared video of a friendly video chat with Argentina’s incoming president and declared he would be at Milei’s inauguration in Buenos Aires. Bolsonaro told the radical libertarian economist, “I’m really happy.” “You have a challenging task ahead of you. and it’s a job that extends beyond Argentina,” the former president of Brazil continued. “Thank you,” Milei answered.
Milei is a true outsider in politics, in contrast to Bolsonaro, a seasoned politician who ran for office in 2018 by posing as an opponent of the status quo. Born in 1970 in Buenos Aires, he first gained notoriety as a foul-mouthed economic pundit on Argentine television while playing in a Rolling Stones cover band. In 2021, he was elected to congress for his libertarian party, Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances). Milei’s volatile nature and her profanity-filled on-screen outbursts
Other ultra-conservative figures expressed their delight at Milei’s resounding victory over the centrist Massa, with 14.47 million to 11.51 million votes, from Bogotá and Santiago to Lisbon and Madrid.
Milei’s “fight to protect society” was praised by Matteo Salvini, the head of the far-right League in Italy, and André Ventura, the leader of the far-right Chega! (Enough!) party in Portugal, sent his best wishes. Vox, a far-right party in Spain led by Santiago Abascal, claimed that Milei had created “a path of future and hope… for Argentinians and all of Latin America.”
Marcelo Álvarez, another celebrant, heralded Milei’s victory as a just reward for rejecting the self-serving politicians he held responsible for destroying millions of lives. The sixty-year-old small company owner beamingly said, “They left people with nothing and now we have won.”
Still, Álvarez did not know what would come under Milei, a notoriously unpredictable political novice. Milei wants to do away with the central bank, dollarize the economy, and implement severe austerity measures, which a lot of economists worry could make Argentina’s crisis worse.
As the street celebration erupted, Álvarez said, “Either things will get better soon or they will really go to shit.” “Hopefully we got it right and will return here to protest in two years.”