At this level of approval ratings, President Javier Milei should face a difficult road to re-election.
July ended with Milei at his lowest popularity since he took office: 33 percent. Most Argentines are telling pollsters that they would like something to change next year. And still, polls measuring voting intention have Milei either in the lead or neck-and-neck with his main opponent.
The answer to that paradox is simple: it is called the opposition. This week, one of the six Peronist provincial governors, La Rioja’s Ricardo Quintela, behaved like the perfect scarecrow for voters unhappy with Milei and seeking an alternative: “We will nationalise or expropriate whatever it takes to reverse” Milei’s economic programme. He said it after hosting a Peronist summit in La Rioja last weekend to mark the 50th anniversary of the murder, by the last military dictatorship, of Catholic bishop Enrique Angelelli.
Quintela might not even actually think that. But he is a perfect example of an opposition sacrificing its public messaging to internal jockeying for position. Quintela, like many Peronists of his generation, came of age in party politics when a La Rioja governor like him, former president Carlos Menem, dominated the country’s politics and turned Argentina into a neo-liberal haven of privatisations. In 2023, Quintela said he would quit if Milei won the Presidency; he is still here.
Most Argentines continue to turn a blind eye to Milei’s mishaps because they see nothing sensible to challenge him. Quintela’s gaffe, designed to stand out in a grey and invisible line-up of Peronist leaders, contains all the contradictions that the Peronist frontrunner for the nomination, Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof, will face.
Kicillof has a track record that spooks investors, even if it is slightly exaggerated. He is technically not responsible for the 'cepo' foreign exchange restrictions introduced during Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s second term in office, before he became economy minister in 2013. He did mastermind and lead the partial nationalisation of YPF in 2012 but immediately handed management to an industry figure like Miguel Galuccio to launch the development of Vaca Muerta, which is booming today – and sustaining Milei’s economy.
Still, Kicillof would begin an eventual race burdened with having to explain what he is not rather than what he wants to be as president of Argentina. After all, his surname starts with a K, just like Kirchner, and for many investors he would represent a return to the populist policy pendulum, close to their worst nightmare. Even if the reality of Kicillof’s vision for the country is far from that, what matters — at least at first sight — is perception.
Fernández de Kirchner and her followers are not helping either. Last week, the former president filed three complaints before the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), arguing that the sentence against her was biased, that the terms of her house arrest are unfair and that her lifetime ban from office is illegal. Her son, Deputy Máximo Kirchner, was explicit: “We want Cristina to be our candidate.”
Fernández de Kirchner and Kicillof are not on speaking terms. She wants him to fully endorse the “Free Cristina” cause, but he knows that doing so would scare independent voters away. This imbroglio leaves the Partido Justicialista (Peronist) in a Catch-22: an old leader who cannot run and test her public support, and a challenger who cannot beat the leader and would thus lack legitimacy even if nominated.
Quintela’s statement and Fernández de Kirchner’s cases before the UNHRC point further to Peronist divisions and improve Milei’s re-election prospects. Quintela’s extreme comments will push other, more moderate and pro-investment Peronist governors closer to an electoral deal with Milei’s ruling La Libertad Avanza, including those from resource-rich provinces like Catamarca and Salta, eager to mine their mountains under the RIGI pro-investment regime.
If the Peronists do not want to win next year’s elections, they are doing exactly the right thing: embracing a navel-gazing narrative, stuck in a past of infighting that many Argentines associate with chaos, and worrying more about themselves than about their constituents. Four more years may be what they get in return.
