On Sunday, 26 October 2025, Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, secured a critical electoral victory in the country’s mid-term legislative elections. Defying polling projections, Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), won nearly 41% of the vote, securing 13 of 24 contested seats in the Senate and 64 of the 127 contested seats in the lower house. This represented a reversal of Milei’s recent political fortunes after the opposition Peronist movement won a key provincial election in the capital Buenos Aires in September (his opponents only managed 31% of the vote on Sunday).

Milei – a libertarian economist and popular media commentator – was elected president in 2023 on a radical programme to steer Argentina back towards economic freedom. Argentina was once one of the wealthiest economies in the world, hence the anachronistic saying: “As rich as an Argentine”.

LLA’s legislative win strengthens Milei’s mandate to radically reform the Argentine economy and continue dismantling the corporatist system that has undermined the country’s vast potential for over 80 years.

Radical anti-populist

The Argentine president is often referred to as a “right-wing populist”. Philosophically, Milei is a self-described anarcho-capitalist who believes that the state itself is fundamentally coercive and should be destroyed altogether. He is certainly not “far-right” as many publications in the West have wilfully mischaracterised him.

But neither is he a populist.

In fact, as Ian Vásquez of the Cato Institute has argued, Milei is an “anti-populist”. He may be anti-establishment and prone to using colourful language on the campaign trail, but Milei’s central message is that Argentina must face up to the harsh economic reality created by his predecessors. Argentines must endure short-term pain for long-term gain, he argues.

During his presidential inauguration speech Milei warned his fellow countrymen no hay plata (“there is no money”) after decades of fiscal deficits and government profligacy resulted in three sovereign debt defaults since 2001 and a succession of economic crises. Unlike his Peronist predecessors who engaged in rampant money printing, Milei has refused to spend money he doesn’t have.

Consequently, Milei has pushed back the rising tide of inflation, from over 200% on an annualised basis when he took office in December 2023, to around 30% today. Measured monthly, inflation has come down from 26% to below 2% over the same period.

Inflation has been Argentina’s constant foe and a destroyer of wealth, and while there is still room for further reductions, this has arguably been Milei’s greatest success in the eyes of the electorate.

Chainsaw politics

In his first day in office, Milei made good on a campaign promise to cut the size of cabinet from 18 ministries down to nine. Compare this to the gargantuan size of South Africa’s cabinet with its 32 ministers and 37 deputies. We can only look on with envy from across the Atlantic.

Milei has also wielded his metaphorical chainsaw against the bureaucratic behemoth of the Argentine state, slashing government expenditure by 30% and eliminating thousands of growth-killing regulations. The result: a resurgent economy and the first fiscal surplus in 123 years. All of this within the space of a year, achieving what Margaret Thatcher took a decade to accomplish in the United Kingdom.

Miraculous stuff.

Milei’s deregulation agenda has been ably executed by another economist-cum-politician, Federico Sturzenegger, a one-time President of the Central Bank who now serves as the Minister of Deregulation and State Transformation (needless to say, Sturzenegger’s idea of “transformation” is somewhat different to the South African understanding!).

Why Milei matters

Fully undoing the damage wrought by Peronism doesn’t happen overnight and Milei’s renewed electoral mandate gives fresh momentum to his reforms. There is a lot riding on Milei succeeding, not only for the long-suffering Argentines, but for freedom-loving people everywhere.

As a proud free-market capitalist myself, I am often met with the criticism that libertarianism might be great in theory but is impractical and can never survive the “reality” of politics. The argument is that incentives in a democratic system are designed to reward politicians who promise free stuff to voters who lack skin in the game and are happy to benefit from the production of others.

Milei’s political success might be an outlier, but it proves that a libertarian agenda can be popular – and actually work.

But there’s a unique reason for Milei’s success.

Classical liberalism, broadly defined, is undoubtedly the best way of ordering social and economic affairs, but both its strength and its weakness is its approach to power.

It correctly characterises the state as easily captured by special interests and seeks to limit the scope of government with a series of checks and balances – the rule of law rather than rule by man.

Conversely – or perhaps consequently – many liberal political movements have been too shy to seek out political power for themselves, leaving the political terrain open to their socialist and nationalist opponents who then proceed to undermine liberty. Other times, when they gain power, they refuse to wield it even in pursuit of liberal objectives.

Milei sees things differently. In a June 2024 interview with Bari Weiss of The Free Press, he identified the need for libertarians to quit whining and start winning:

“You need to understand that power is a zero-sum game, and if those of us who are on the right don’t have it, then the left will have it. So, libertarians who only criticize are cowards because they never wanted to really get into the mud that politics is,” he said.

This is Milei’s great insight.

Natural rights don’t come naturally. They need to be fought for and constantly defended. And the only way to defeat state power is to win it and domesticate it for liberty, lest the enemies of freedom seize it first and use it against you.

Power move

Milei demonstrated his willingness to engage in realpolitik earlier this month when he sought the backing of his key ally: Donald Trump.

This came after the electoral setback in September prompted investors to sell off Argentine bonds and dump the peso out of fear that Milei’s free market reforms might not survive this month’s ballot. Milei risked everything by burning through Argentina’s United States (US) dollar reserves to keep the peso from depreciating against the dollar. Had he not done so, inflation expectations might have risen sharply on the eve of the elections

This was unsustainable over the long term, but the bet paid off.

Following a meeting between Trump and Milei on 23 September at the United Nations, and after four days of negotiations in early October between US Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, and Argentine finance minister, Luis Caputo, Bessent announced a US$20 billion currency swap framework with Argentina’s Central Bank. The US government effectively bought Argentine pesos in exchange for US dollars. Bessent also announced a separate US$20 billion credit facility provided by US private banks and sovereign wealth funds.

The peso and Argentine dollar bonds rebounded after the announcement, bringing much-needed stability to Argentina’s financial markets ahead of the legislative elections. Trump himself warned that ongoing financial support from the US was conditional on a successful showing for Milei’s party at the polls.

In so doing, Trump broke the tradition of not picking winners in another country’s elections, much to the chagrin of the Peronists, who accused Milei of selling out to “US imperialism”.

Milei’s brand of politics is quite different to Trump’s.

The Argentine is a free trader who is aggressively cutting back the state, while the American is a big-spending protectionist who believes in “America First”. Nevertheless, Milei has studiously cultivated this partnership and was willing to leverage it to his advantage.

Javier Milei’s “second coming” was a hard-fought victory for freedom and a lesson for liberty-lovers in the acquisition – and application – of political power. Now he can make good on his promise to demolish the state he leads.