Martin Suchanek, 26. August 2023
The victory of the right-wing, ultra-liberal Javier Milei in the primary elections on 13 August is tantamount to a political earthquake. Surprisingly, the candidate of the right-wing La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) left behind the representatives of the big bourgeois party blocs – the right-wing liberal alliance Juntos por el Cambio (Together for Change) and the Peronist Unión por la Patria (Union for the Fatherland).
Surveys predicted that Milei, whose party was only founded in 2021, would win up to 20 % of the vote, which would put him in third place among the presidential candidates. However, no one thought that he would win.
Result of the primaries
Primary elections in Argentina serve two purposes. First, only parties or alliances that clear the 1.5% hurdle are allowed to contest the presidential elections, 130 of the 257 parliamentary seats and 24 of the 72 senatorial seats. Secondly, two lists of candidates can run for a party in the primaries and the result will determine who heads the list. In addition, primaries were also held on 13 August for the governorship and legislature of several provinces, including the city and region of Buenos Aires.
In the presidential primaries, Milei and vice-presidential candidate Victoria Villarruel received 30% of the vote. Unlike most other lists, there was no internal party competition. Juntos por el Cambio came second with 28.3 %, with Patricia Bullrich, leader of former President Mauricio Macri’s party (2015 – 2019) and former security minister, winning with 17 %.
The Peronist Unión por la Patria, which is still in power, won only 27.27 % – and thus lost around 20 % compared to the 2019 primaries! The current Minister of Economy and Finance, Massa, i.e. the candidate from the right wing of the party, clearly prevailed with 21.4 %. The left-wing populist counter-candidate Grabois gained just 5.89 %, although he was supported by the Pope and former President Cristina Kirchner.
Only two other lists made it to the presidential elections, all others remained below 1.5 %. Thus, in addition to the three major camps mentioned above, Schiaretti and Randazzo, who come from Peronism, are running, and received 3.8 % in the primaries. The candidates of the Frente de Izquierda y de Trabajadores – Unidad (FIT-U = Front of the Left and Workers – United Front) received 2.7%. In total, the FIT-U received 630,000 votes – a significant drop compared to the last primaries in 2021 (for the other half of the parliamentary seats), when it received almost one million votes, but also compared to the 2019 elections. In the FIT-U, the PTS/IS list (Bregman and del Caño) prevailed with 1.86% compared to that of PO/MST (Solano and Ripoll), which received 0.79%. Other left candidates from the Trotskyist spectrum fell short of the 1.5 % hurdle with 0.6 % (Nuevo MAS) and 0.3 % (Politica Obrera).
Victory of the Right and Crisis
If we look only at the votes in the presidential elections, candidates to the right of the ruling Peronist party achieved around 60 %! In addition, La Libertad Avanza also performed strongly in many provinces, which means that not only Milei but also his party were able to establish themselves as serious candidates. Moreover, the votes for the ruling Peronists should in no way be interpreted as “left-wing”. Rather, Peronism represents the left wing of the bourgeois spectrum, a populist political current that ultimately represents the interests of capital, even if it has incorporated the trade unions and their leadership for decades, in a sense representing a popular front in party form.
In any case, the two main parties of the political system have lost positions. For decades, they – and they alone – provided the presidency and the government, taking turns, so to speak, when it came to doing the state’s business and dividing the associated sinecures among themselves. This system has always been inextricably linked with corruption, nepotism, abuse of office and more or less open looting of state funds for their own purposes or in the interests of domestic and foreign capital.
But Argentina has been in an extreme economic and social crisis for years, which is closely linked to the country’s semi-colonial dependence. Already at the turn of the century, the country was on the brink of ruin as a result of debt, bank crash and collapse of the currency. After this was temporarily overcome, the debt spiral is turning again. Since 2014 at the latest, the country has come close to insolvency.
For years, Argentina has been negotiating one debt rescheduling after another with the IMF, as it would otherwise hardly receive any new loans. In March 2023, the debt amounted to around 276 billion US dollars. Of this, 148 billion was owed to the national government, which owes the IMF around 45 billion. At the same time, the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves fell to 36.5 billion US dollars, the lowest level since 2016.
Inflation has risen from 64 % to 115 % between June 2022 and June 2023, which is also leading many to try to invest their reserves in US dollars. Extreme droughts, accompanied by massive crop losses – estimates range from 30-40% for various agricultural products – have further exacerbated the situation. Energy and fuel shortages are exacerbating the situation. For 2023, the IMF forecasts a contraction of the economy by 2.5 % and an inflation rate of 120 %.
At the same time, about 40 % of the population already live in complete poverty – and with a massive increase. According to estimates, about 4.5 million people have slipped into poverty in recent years, also from the middle classes – not least as a result of the cuts negotiated for IMF loans. Unemployment is around 7.5 %, youth unemployment 18.3 %. Only 43 % of workers have a “regular” employment contract, the majority of wage earners work without social security through contract work or as bogus self-employed. As a result, the trade unions have lost potential influence, because the majority of employment relationships are not regulated by trade union agreements (which, in turn, does not prevent the trade union leaders from continuing to subordinate themselves to the Peronist leaders).
Resistance
All this is by no means taking place without resistance and protest. In the summer of 2022, there were significant demonstrations against price increases and major cuts to social programmes by the Peronist Fernández government. Several nationwide days of protest in 2023 mobilised hundreds of thousands – 160,000 on 7 February, around 350,000 people on 18 May 2023 after a number of marches converged on Buenos Aires against hunger and IMF austerity policies. They were largely organised by a coordination for social change, an alliance of unemployed people’s organisations called Unidad Piquetera.
On 4 July 2023, protests took place in at least 87 places in Argentina, and in many places streets and intersections were also blocked. Under the banner “Unidad Piquetera” (United Blockade), various social movements demonstrated together against the growing inequality in the country.
The four demands of the Unidad Piquetera: “20 million poor, and the food goes to the election campaign. [1) Holistic supply of soup kitchens. 2) Supply of the means for self-managed work. 3) Inflation compensation allowance. 4) Increase in social programmes = inflation.”
Another example of protests occurred in June 2023 in the northwest province of Jujuy, where the governor wants to push through a constitutional reform. The new constitution prohibits blocking roads or taking other measures, which have been used in recent weeks in the province in demonstrations against the reform and for better pay for teachers.
“The CGT of Jujuy has called a 48-hour strike. All to strike and mobilise. It must continue until the reform falls and they respond to all demands. A national strike by the CGT and the CTA in support of the people of Jujuy is essential. After days of struggle and repression in Purmamarca, the words of the President and Vice President have reached the nation. Their party supported Morales’ reform and today they were still in the plenary hall swearing that it is a bad reform while they repress the people. Down with the reform. Up with wages and rights. Freedom for all those arrested and imprisoned. General strike until the constitutional reform is dropped by Morales and the PJ”. (From a report by the left electoral alliance FIT-U) (Gerardo Morales=Governor of Jujuy)
However, despite considerable size, the protests have so far not gone beyond large-scale demonstrations or local, temporary occupations and strikes. Secondly, many also have a defensive, rather pleading character.
Why did the right win?
As important as these mobilisations are, the political pendulum in Argentina is swinging massively to the right in the midst of a combined social and economic crisis. There is no doubt that the electoral movements are unstable and snapshots. Certainly, many also voted for Milei to teach the established parties a lesson, not because they were so convinced by his policies. But the results of the primaries are clear (and will not change much between now and the elections, even if Juntos por el Cambio or Unión por la Patria do better). The shift to the right is clear – and we have to ask ourselves why a candidate like Milei, who was not even on the ballot in 2019, could achieve 30%.
Similar to Trump, the economist and self-proclaimed “anarcho-capitalist” is staging himself as a candidate against the “corrupt” establishment. He promises to clean up corruption, the “old system”, which includes trade unions, leftists, achievements of the women’s movement and the oppressed.
He wants to abolish the peso and replace it with the US dollar; the central bank would then no longer be needed and would consequently be closed. The bond with US imperialism would be strengthened.
Milei has connections to well-known right-wing organisations such as the “Fundación LIBRE” and has words of praise for the former military dictatorship. He also speaks out against abortion. His economic agenda is a particularly radical form of neoliberalism. He wants to abolish all social programmes and stop taxing companies. Education and public health care are to be completely privatised.
No wonder, then, that he finds support among the richest people as well as significant sections of the petty bourgeoisie and the middle classes. But, paradoxically, he also received massive support among the poorest people.
This not only highlights their massive alienation from the Argentine political system and especially from Peronism, which had long integrated them. The choice of the right as “protest” also points to the desperation and partial demoralisation of these strata. If the trade unions and the left do not succeed in mobilising the masses against the crisis and in representing a pole of hope for them, this stratum threatens to solidify into a right-wing populist movement and, in the case of future struggles, even to become further radicalised.
The mixture of heterogeneous class forces – from impoverished, declassed strata to the petty bourgeoisie and sections of the ruling class – can only be held together by the anarcho-capitalist leader combining his programme, which is directly directed against the mass of his voters, with racist, reactionary, demagogic and irrational agitation against a common enemy. If Milei remains in opposition, he will pursue this strategy in any case. But even if he gains a significant influence on the next government or even, which is unlikely, wins the presidency, he will have to continue to resort to such reactionary mobilisation if he wants to keep his supporters in line.
The radical left
Against this background, the results of the “radical left” must be analysed and its tasks determined.
The FIT-U achieved a result of 2.7 % (=620,000 voters), which would be very respectable in any other country. However, the FIT-U electoral alliance of four Trotskyist organisations has existed since 2011 and the results have been hovering around this percentage ever since. The FIT-U has grown somewhat, but its social influence has stagnated for years.
This is due to several factors. First, it essentially forms only an electoral alliance. Outside the elections, the four groupings mainly appear as different organisations.
Even though everyone likes to stress that the FIT-U must become more than an electoral alliance – no one has seriously attempted the step of going beyond that either.
This would mean openly and publicly debating programmatic unification and programmatic differences. It would also mean opening the FIT-U to workers and youth who support its electoral programme.
But this is not possible. The members of the FIT-U are four organisations – Partido Obrero (PO), Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS), Izquierda Socialista (IS) and Movimiento Socialista de los Trabajadores (MST). If you want to have a say, you have to enter one of the four.
In addition, the FIT-U programme dates back to 2011 (!) and has not been updated since. This would be urgently necessary. Firstly, because the programme is not focused on the current tasks, and secondly, because it has important weaknesses that make it a centrist, non-revolutionary programme. For example, it does not contain a clear orientation towards a united front policy towards the existing trade unions, which are politically dominated by Peronism. The programme does address the demand for a workers’ government, but it leaves open on which organs such a government would have to be based, workers’ councils and armed self-defence organs of the workers and oppressed (militias) are not mentioned at all.
Parts of the FIT, e.g. Izquierda Socialista, consider this insufficient programme to be sufficient. In fact, the candidates of the FIT-U operate with their own electoral platforms. There are massive differences not only on the election programme, but also on other important questions for the class struggle (characterisation of Russia and China, the war in Ukraine, relations with Cuba and Venezuela, attitude towards the piquetero organisations and Peronism).
The elections must therefore not be understood by FIT-U as a call for “business as usual”. Rather, two interrelated strategic tasks must be tackled:
a) Building a united front against the attack of capital with the aim of forcing the trade unions into struggle as well.
b) Elaborate a programme of action culminating in the struggle for a workers’ government based on councils and militias, expropriating big capital under workers’ control and implementing an emergency plan against the crisis.
But this would require the FIT-U itself to make a course correction, to organise a discussion around these questions in order to build a united revolutionary workers’ party.