This Sunday (26), Argentina holds its presidential mid-term legislative elections, and the country’s current president, Javier Milei, needs his party, A Liberdade Avança (LLA, in its Spanish acronym), to have significant results so that his reform agenda is not blocked in Congress.
127 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 24 of the 72 seats in the Senate will be up for grabs. Today, the LLA has only 44 seats in the Chamber and six in the Senate, which forces it to rely on votes from other parties, such as Proposta Republicana (PRO), of former president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019), and such parties are not 100% faithful to Milei’s agenda.
Thus, the president has suffered defeats in the Legislature that, he claims, threaten his “zero deficit” goals.
Recently, the Argentine Congress overturned vetoes that the president had imposed on a law that obliges the State to increase funding for the country’s public universities and another that declares a state of emergency in pediatric health and determines the allocation of more funds for the sector.
It also approved a law to limit Milei’s power to issue decrees, by establishing a 90-day deadline for the Legislature to ratify these measures (otherwise they become null and void) and that they can be overturned with rejection in only one of the houses of Congress (current legislation requires the rejection of both). This proposed change returned to the Senate, which had already partially approved it.
In an interview with People’s GazetteFlavio Gonzalez, lawyer and professor at the University of Buenos Aires, said that, taking into account the number of seats in dispute this Sunday, the LLA “will not achieve a parliamentary majority even if it has a favorable result”.
However, a victory would give Milei political strength to “neutralize the opposition’s power to overturn presidential vetoes, which it has not been able to do so far”, said the analyst – for a veto to be overturned, at least two-thirds of the votes of parliamentarians are needed.
With victory or defeat this Sunday, the president will need to negotiate, said Gonzalez.
“If he doesn’t build alliances in Congress, for example, with governors [na Argentina, os governantes provinciais têm grande influência no Congresso nacional] who are more towards the center of the political spectrum, it will be very difficult for the president to approve an agenda”, said the expert, who also highlighted the need to “seek agreements with members of the opposition [no Parlamento] that are more in the center, which is called dialogical opposition”.
Trump, a great “voter” for Milei
American President Donald Trump is an ally of Milei and has become in recent weeks a kind of LLA campaigner for the mid-term elections.
The United States is directly purchasing Argentine pesos and closed a US$20 billion currency swap agreement with the Central Bank of Argentina to slow the rise of the dollar.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the Trump administration is also seeking a $20 billion credit line that would complement the swap line, “with private banks and sovereign wealth funds that, I believe, would be more focused on the debt market.”
On the 14th, Milei was received at the White House by Trump, who suggested that aid could be interrupted if Milei suffered electoral defeats.
“We’re not going to let someone take office and waste the taxpayers’ money in this country. I’m not going to let that happen,” Trump said. “If he [Milei] lose, we will not be generous with Argentina.”
Trump appeared to make reference to the 2027 presidential election, when Milei will seek re-election, but hours later he expressed support for the Argentine president in the mid-term legislative elections.
“I hope the Argentine people understand the great work he is doing and support his work during the upcoming midterm elections so that we can continue to help him realize Argentina’s incredible potential. Javier Milei has my full and complete support — he will not let you down,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
For Flavio Gonzalez, the situation shows that “there are no relations between States, between Argentina and the United States”.
“What exists are relations between governments, between the Milei government and the Trump government. And, well, this obviously makes any relationship unstable. Because if a relationship between countries is subject to an electoral result, this obviously creates instability in the relationship,” said the analyst.
Gonzalez stated that, in the event of the LLA’s defeat this Sunday, there could be impacts “on the flow of money that Trump has been putting in place to contain the rise of the dollar in the Argentine foreign exchange market”.
“But despite this, he also cannot go to the other extreme, of not taking Argentina’s financial problems into account, because otherwise, Argentina would be in the hands of China, and that is something that the United States cannot allow,” highlighted the analyst.
“There are geopolitical issues that transcend the Milei-Trump relationship, which have to do with the multipolar or bipolar order at the international level, the competition between the United States and China, which, despite what Trump says, also obliges him not to neglect his relationship with Argentina, just as he should not neglect it with any country in South America or with any country in the world. And the same with China”, he pondered.
