*Originally published in 2025 and preserved as part of our archive project.Get E-International Relations delivered directly to your inbox, free of charge. As you sign up, consider becoming a paid subscriber to support our work.

Argentine President Javier Milei is riding high. His tough economic program has eliminated the government’s chronic deficits and dramatically cut inflation.  The International Monetary Fund has given him its seal of approval with a huge new loan enabling him to eliminate burdensome exchange controls. And he has begun to aggressively prune an overblown, politicized bureaucracy. Despite the real pain which the public has endured as the price of his reforms, he continues to poll well, and has had success in regional elections, most recently in the May 18 race for seats in the Buenos Aires city council. Milei successfully turned this local contest into a referendum on his rule, naming his press spokesman to lead his party’s list, and has taken an unexpectedly wide victory as a definitive public endorsement. 

At the same time former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, whose leftist populist approach to economics represents the antithesis of Milei’s austerity policies, has run out of appeals in a long-standing corruption case and has begun serving a six year sentence under house arrest. Her supporters have rallied in front of her apartment building in Buenos Aires, and while she is barred from running for office again, her travails have given her, at least for the moment, a measure of political relevance which had been slipping away from her. But internal power struggles are intensifying among the Peronists, who lack any coherent program with which to challenge Milei. Thus, for the moment he stands astride Argentine political........

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