A decisive majority of Argentinian voters opted for making an attempt one thing new once they elected Javier Milei to be the nation’s subsequent president.
Amid hovering inflation and rising poverty, Milei, a right-wing populist who promised a radical shakeup of the federal government, defeated incumbent financial system minister Sergio Massa within the run-off vote on Sunday with greater than 55% of votes, the very best share a presidential candidate has obtained since Argentina’s return to democracy in 1983.
The 53-year-old lawmaker who has self-identified as a libertarian and “anarcho-capitalist” campaigned on slashing public spending, eliminating the central financial institution, and switching the nation’s forex from the Argentinian peso to the U.S. greenback, amongst different drastic financial measures. He additionally rallied in opposition to intercourse training in colleges, pledged to curb abortion access, and rejected local weather science as a socialist conspiracy.
But greater than any of his coverage proposals or platform particulars, Milei primarily got here to be identified all through the turbulent election season as an eccentric. A former rock musician who as soon as jammed in a Rolling Stones tribute band, the wild-haired Milei rose to prominence as a prolific economist and TV and radio commentator. On the marketing campaign path, he wielded a chainsaw on stage and smashed a piñata on air to represent his plans. He has made daring remarks starting from calling Pope Francis a “filthy leftist” to hailing American gangster Al Capone as a “hero.”
Milei’s critics have typically pointed to his outlandish conduct and weird pronouncements to argue his incompetency to rule—Argentinian journalist Juan Luis González’s unauthorized biography about Milei is entitled Crazy (The Madman)—however political observers say Milei’s election represents much less a present of help for him and extra an outcry of frustration in opposition to the established order. Local political advisor Lucas Romero told the Associated Press: “This is a triumph that is less due to Milei and his peculiarities and particularities and more to the demand for change.”
Still, maybe nothing has raised extra questions in regards to the President-elect’s psychological acuity and health to steer than the widely-reported (and ridiculed) matter of whom he turns to for recommendation: Conan, Murray, Milton, Robert and Lucas. They have been the first people he thanked when he completed first within the nation’s presidential primaries in August—besides they’re probably not individuals.
“Who else?” he stated. “My four-legged children,” referring to his 5 dogs whom he has known as “the best strategists.”
It all began when Milei adopted an English mastiff named Conan, a reference to the 1982 movie Conan the Barbarianin 2004. González, the Argentinian journalist and unofficial Milei biographer, wrote within the Buenos Aires Times that the pet grew to become, in Milei’s phrases, his “true and greatest love” and that Milei got here to see Conan as “literally his son.” Milei, who’s single and childless, has credited the 200-pound canine with being his closest pal and confidante and sticking by his aspect via tough and lonely instances.
When Conan died in 2017, Milei reportedly visited a medium to speak together with his late beloved pet. It was in that telepathic conversationMilei has stated, that Conan gave him the mission to change into president of Argentina. According to Argentina’s The nation newspaper, Milei believes that he and Conan first met in a earlier life greater than 2,000 years in the past as a gladiator and lion within the Roman Colosseum and that the pair didn’t combat as a result of they have been destined to hitch forces sooner or later, and he believes his presidential marketing campaign was that predestined second.
In 2018, Milei went on to pay about $50,000, in line with Reuters and the New York Timesto U.S. firm PerPETuate to clone Conan utilizing his DNA, one thing Milei had reportedly been planning on doing for a while. The process resulted in 5 puppies, whom Milei named after the unique Conan and the economists Murray Rothbard, Milton Friedman, and Robert Lucas. Milei usually refers back to the present clone Conan as his son—and doesn’t distinguish him from the unique Conan—and the opposite 4 dogs as his “grandchildren.”
González and different Argentine information shops have reported that Milei seeks counsel from his dogs on issues of his marketing campaign, coverage, and extra. In an August interview with Spanish newspaper 20minutosGonzález stated that Milei “is convinced that the dogs advise him in different areas: one in politics, another in economics, another gives him general advice.” González added that he’s nervous about such an “unstable leader” in an already “unstable” Argentina: “This man who would command the fate of the country wakes up each day, does medium sessions with the dogs, and then makes a decree based on that. It’s very shocking.”
When requested by The Economist in September in regards to the reviews of his unconventional canine cupboard, Milei didn’t deny it, responding with seeming pleasure: “What is it they say, that my dogs determine my strategies, yes? That they are like a strategic committee? They are the best strategic committee in the world. Tell me: when has an outsider-outsider achieved what we achieved in two years? If so, they are the best political analysts in the world.”
