Inflation rose year-on-year to 104% in March, a 32-year record. Only once, in 1991, when then-President Carlos Menem made the unfortunate choice to exchange dollar and peso at par, was the figure higher: it reached 115%. In this scenario, and with the poverty rate at 40%, Argentina faces one of the most difficult moments of its already bumpy recent history, after the playpen of the early 2000s, and preparing for elezioni prezidenziali of next autumn. Elections in which the current president will not run again, Alberto Fernandez, whose disapproval rate by the population has skyrocketed to 71%. A figure that would make anyone give up and which leaves many doubts about what will happen in the coming months: is Peronism really over? Will Cristina Kichner, former president but recently convicted of corruption, return? Will it be the turn of the liberals again like Macri, Alberto's predecessor, or will some new names emerge?
Argentina: real economy in ruins, but the stock market rises with raw materials
The situation, as mentioned, is very delicate. To meet public spending, the government has recently issued more money, driving up the exchange with the dollar at very high valuesi: the official exchange rate at the end of April reached 230 pesos, while the parallel one, the famous "blue dollar", is now worth 120% more than the regular one, nearly 500 pesos, a record figure. This situation is creating a lot market uncertainty: while the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange continues to rise, driven by raw materials, the country is increasingly struggling in the real economy. In fact, the peso at its historic low puts trade at risk, so much so that the government has announced that it will start paying the imports from China directly into yuan. Beijing is Argentina's second trading partner, while the first is Brazil: to streamline trade, President Fernandez and his counterpart Lula had first hypothesized the idea of a single currency, then waned, and then found an agreement to reduce from 6 months to 1 month the deadline for the no impediment document for the entry of Brazilian products into Argentine territory.
Argentina and presidential elections 2023: the ascension of the Minister of Economy. Is Cristina Kirchner back?
Author of these moves, in addition to the president himself, is the Economy Minister Sergio Massa, 50, former chief of staff of Cristina Kirchner and considered a moderate profile, capable of reassuring the markets. Many are betting that he will be the heir to the current president and therefore the candidate of the Frente de Todos, the Peronist party led by Cristina, former president from 2007 to 2015 and whose sensational return is rumored, despite being sentenced last December for corruption in public procurement. Del Frente de Todos is also Daniel Scioli, 66 years old, another name that could have its say: already a candidate in 2015, when he lost to Macri with 48% of the preferences, he was governor of Buenos Aires and also has a past in the business world, in the multinational Electrolux. Today he is ambassador to Brazil, and he was one of the proponents of the truce between presidents Fernandez and Bolsonaro, who thanks to his mediation found a way to collaborate despite their political differences.
However, new names are appearing in the race for the presidency in Argentina
Of the three Peronist names, according to the polls, Cristina would be the most likely to have, however only 18% accredited. You with this percentage you would finish just in third place, behind the probable centre-right candidate Horacio Larreta (Juntos por el Cambio), listed at 19%, and above all at theemerging populist Javier Milei, which would be the favorite of the forecasts with 24%. An ultra-conservative economist, 52 years old, Milei is today a deputy elected for the Partido Libertario and for the coalition freedom advances, of which he is the leader. Famous for his particularly surly dialectic (he has often insulted political opponents and journalists), Milei defines himself as an "anarcho-capitalist" and proposes the total dollarization of the Argentine economy. The far-right candidate therefore has every appearance of being a Trump or an Argentine Bolsonaro, able to gather the frustration of the population, for decades now abandoned to a crisis that seems to never end.
For Argentina it would not be the first time a president was elected practically out of nowhere, or in any case an outsider: it happened in the 80s with the socialist Raul Alfonsin, but the parable of Menem themselves, Nestor Kirchner (husband and predecessor of Cristina) and Mauricio Macri, an entrepreneur (and president of Boca Juniors) lent to politics. Javier Milei seems like the classic anti-politics profile, but recent experiences, in Europe as in the Americas, have not produced the desired results.
