There’s an unwritten rule in Argentine politics: sometimes the leader needs to disappear. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner understood that well. In the 2017 midterms she kept her distance, was ultimately beaten by Esteban Bullrich, yet still secured her Senate seat. And in 2019, recognizing her presence hurt the ticket, she stepped back and put Alberto Fernández at the top, clearing the way for Mauricio Macri’s removal from the Casa Rosada. Every time she spoke, her numbers dipped.
Javier Milei and several of his top officials seem to have absorbed that lesson. After their hard-fought midterm victory on October 26, Milei and Economy Minister Luis “Toto” Caputo made a brief tour of friendly television studios before fading from the spotlight. Riding the high of a sweeping electoral win and buoyed by Washington’s emergency support, they appear convinced they gain more by watching their disheveled opponents tear themselves apart than by getting dragged into the daily churn of Argentine politics. They resurface occasionally to boast about the deal struck with U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the value of Donald Trump’s backing, but for the most part they stay on the sidelines.
It’s not a foolish strategy. The libertarians must wait until December 10 for their newly elected deputies and senators to take office, only then gaining the leverage to negotiate their reform agenda. Until then, the political horse-trading has fallen to the newly appointed Interior Minister, Diego “Colo” Santilli, tasked with negotiating with provincial governors to secure support for Milei’s so-called “second-generation” reforms. He’s joined by Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni, who increasingly resembles a censor operating on behalf of Karina Milei — the president’s sister and, by most accounts, the most powerful figure in the administration. Slowly but steadily, they’ve chipped away at the Peronist caucus, still the largest minority in the lower house, as governors trade votes for funding. Milei and Caputo must pass a budget to satisfy the IMF and to demonstrate some basic governing capacity. In practice, that means doing politics the old-fashioned way: paying up.
Which is why the president is better off keeping quiet. The urge to denounce the political class as rats, parasites, or worse is always there, but every outburst carries a cost. Caputo faces the same problem. His compulsion to respond to every critic has already produced moments like the infamous “comprá, campeón” (ie. “buy ’em up, champ”) episode, when he mocked investors right before the exchange rate tanked — an instant meme of the Milei era. A U.S. rescue package saved them from deeper embarrassment, but the bravado hasn’t exactly faded, even as most households struggle to get by.
The risk, of course, is that by ceding the initiative, they allow themselves to be engulfed by scandal. The $LIBRA crypto affair continues to dog the administration, and the corruption mess at the national disability agency, ANDIS, has become a full-blown political nightmare. The latest trove of leaked messages has painted an almost grotesque portrait of kickbacks, inflated contracts, and petty scheming, with Miguel Ángel Calvete emerging as the central character in this farcical operation. The dialogues — involving suitcases of cash, code-names, and promises of Lamborghinis — read like discarded scenes from a second-rate comedy about Latin American corruption. But they also speak to a deeper culture of impunity that has proved nearly impossible to uproot.
The parallels to the “Cuadernos” notebooks case are hard to ignore. Once again, meticulous notes, coded language, and a structured collection system point to a scheme in which public contracts are awarded through pre-arranged processes and everyone takes a cut along the way. Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, recently found guilty in the Vialidad public works case, continues to insist she’s a victim of lawfare and that no evidence links her directly to the operation. But the modus operandi feels uncomfortably familiar. The only difference is that today’s operators have the misfortune of living in the age of screenshots.
For the media and the so-called “círculo rojo” — the country’s business and opinion elite — these scandals provide endless entertainment. For most Argentines, they don’t change the fact that the economy still feels stuck in recession, wages trail inflation, and purchasing power keeps eroding. And yet Milei’s electoral win suggests that even amid “chainsaw austerity” and a deep downturn, a substantial portion of voters chose to give the president another chance. Polls show Milei has regained momentum thanks in part to a sharp fall in inflation, even though prices continue to rise and the recovery he promises remains elusive. Meanwhile, economic activity remains stuck at roughly 2023 levels, according to the INDEC statistics agency’s monthly indicator, and salaries continue to lose ground.
Milei now has a golden opportunity after delivering an unexpected and forceful midterm victory. With full U.S. backing, he should be able to avoid a run on the peso through the end of his term — but he needs to adjust his economic path. Pursuing a strong-peso strategy will once again fuel macroeconomic imbalances and derail any attempt at recovery. Politically, stronger numbers in Congress don’t put him anywhere near a majority, but they give him the ability to build temporary coalitions to pass much-needed reforms. That requires an honest budget and real negotiations with governors and other political actors. Picking fights with potential allies — nearly all of them at once — guarantees paralysis. And it doesn’t all rest on him: the fractured Peronist opposition along with the splintered moderates who once followed Macri must also get their act together. Unfortunately, they’ve spent years proving they can’t. At least we’ll have the Spagnuolo affair to keep us entertained, unless they finally surprise us.
This piece was originally published in the Buenos Aires Times, Argentina’s only English-language newspaper.