Milei Suffers Defeat: Left Wins Buenos Aires

President Javier Milei suffered a setback in Buenos Aires Province on Sunday as the opposition dominated regional elections in its traditional stronghold.

Milei, 54, put his government’s popularity to the test in key legislative elections in Argentina’s most-populous region, but voters chose to back the opposition Peronist movement by a large margin.

With 82.2 percent of polling stations reporting in the main race for the Legislative Assembly, Fuerza Patria – the Peronist banner grouping the main opposition front – had 46.93 percent and a lead of more than 13 points ahead of Milei’s La Libertad Avanza alliance.

The President’s slate of candidates, which incorporated figures from ex-president Mauricio Macri’s PRO party, was second on 33.86 percent.

In third was Somos Buenos Aires, a group with candidates from the Unión Cívica Radical, Cívica Coalición and the Partido Socialista, with 5.41 percent.

The left-wing Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores had 4.37 percent.

Turnout was initially pegged at 63 percent.

Buenos Aires Province, governed by Peronist leader Axel Kicillof, accounts for more than 30 percent of Argentina’s GDP and contains 40 percent of the national electorate. That makes the vote for local lawmakers and councillors a key prelude to the upcoming midterm national elections on October 26.

The results are being closely watched by politicians, analysts and markets alike, all of whom are seeking an assessment of Milei’s staying power.

The Milei administration headed into the contest shaken by a corruption scandal at the ANDIS national disability agency involving people close to the President, including his sister and chief-of-staff Karina Milei.

The vote came just four days after Congress overturned a presidential veto for the first time, enacting a law that declares an emergency in the case of the disabled grants additional funds to the minority group.

On the economic front, the government began intervening this week in the currency market, selling dollars from the Treasury to contain the peso’s depreciation, which had been accelerating in recent weeks despite high interest rates.

That’s a stark change, given Milei’s normal free-market mantra and may complicate relations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to political analyst Marcos Novaro, the government approached Sunday’s election “more battered than it expected two months ago, but with a strategy that remains effective for them: polarisation with Kirchnerism and the opposition, between the past and the future.”

Novaro warned that if the government were to lose by more than five points, “the markets will react sensitively, things with the dollar will get heavier, and the road to October could become complicated.”

Milei has banked his popularity on falling inflation – consumer price hikes have slowed from 87 percent in the first seven months of 2024 to 17.3 percent over the same period this year – and through polarisation with Kirchnerism, the Peronist faction led by former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007–2015), who is now under house arrest as she serves a corruption sentence.

Most polls had forecast a close race with a slight edge for the Peronists and warned of the possibility of low turnout.