Days before Argentina’s presidential election last November, Javier Milei was on the ropes. His opponent Sergio Massa, a seasoned operator from the ruling Peronist coalition, pummelled Milei in a televised debate about his lack of experience and picked holes in his radical manifesto. Milei seemed flustered and at times struggled for answers.
“The reading of many people, including me, was that Massa had won,” recalls Guillermo Francos, then a close Milei adviser. “But I got home and looked at what people’s views were on social media. Their perception was the complete opposite. They thought Massa represented the old Argentine politics, arrogant, proud and bullying while Javier was the opposite: an honest, sincere guy who was confronting him.”
Milei went on to win with 55.7 per cent of the vote in the run-off against Massa. Francos, now his interior minister, tells the story as evidence of the mop-haired former TV economist’s ability to rewrite the rules of politics by striking a chord with ordinary citizens — many of whom were desperate for an alternative to decades of economic failure at the hands of a “caste” of corrupt, self-serving politicians.