Sadiq S BhatWashington, DC — Javier Milei promised to tear down Argentina's old political order. He called its leaders "the caste," accused them of decades of theft and decay, and vowed that his own administration would be different.
In 2023, that language fuelled his ascent from television pundit to president. A showman, like US President Donald Trump, he claimed the mantle of anarcho-capitalism and promised to make Argentina ungovernable for the corrupt.
Much like the US media's label for Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro as "Trump of the Tropics", Milei was swiftly dubbed the "Trump of the Pampas", a nod to Argentina's expansive grasslands.
Two years on, Milei's promise to voters appears to be faltering.
President Milei's government has been shaken by a bribery scandal that has landed on the desk of his closest confidante — his sister Karina. His political party La Libertad Avanza has also suffered a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires province's legislative elections, losing by 14 points to the Peronists, the movement Milei vociferously opposed.
The twin blows have left Milei exposed, forcing Argentines to reconsider whether the man who vowed to clean up politics is just another participant in the system he denounced.
For Mason Moseley, an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at West Virginia University, the Buenos Aires result is not simply a local election.
"The recent provincial elections in Buenos Aires might point to the limits of his appeal when people, particularly poor and lower middle class Argentines, don't feel like his policies have had a meaningful positive impact on their lives," Moseley, who has authored several books on Latin American politics, tells TRT World.
Buenos Aires is not just another province. It holds almost 40 per cent of the electorate and remains the decisive battleground for presidential races. Its governor, Axel Kicillof, has emerged as the frontrunner to challenge Milei in 2027, and it was Kicillof who orchestrated September’s victory.
For Milei, the timing could hardly have been worse: a collapse at the polls just as leaked audio tied his sister to an alleged kickback scheme.
The recording, released in August, captured Diego Spagnuolo, the former head of Argentina's disability agency, claiming that contracts with a pharmaceutical supplier had been used to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars a month in bribes.
Karina, he alleged, took a cut. The scandal broke just as Milei vetoed disability funding, fuelling anger that his government was enriching itself while cutting services to the vulnerable.
He dismissed the claims as a political attack, sacked Spagnuolo, and carried on.
But the perception that his sister was implicated stuck, intensified by protests that turned violent and approval ratings that slipped below 40 per cent.
Austerity without growth
Naomi Roht-Arriaza, Distinguished Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of California Law, San Francisco, argues that the scandal strikes at the core of Milei's identity.
"The defeat of Milei's party in these elections shows, above all, Argentines' rejection of corrupt leaders," she tells TRT World.
"A perception that the former Peronist president was corrupt is what led many Argentines, especially in Buenos Aires, to break with existing political parties and support Milei as a radical change who would upend a corrupt system."
Roht-Arriaza, who is also the author of Fighting Grand Corruption: Transnational and Human Rights Approaches from Latin America and Beyond, adds, "The latest scandal involving his sister and close advisers has now left the perception of him as a clean-government reformer in tatters."
Milei's economic programme exacerbates the disillusionment.
Inflation, once a source of daily panic, has slowed from triple digits. But food and energy continue to be costly in Argentina, and his government’s deep cuts to social spending has not gone down well with households.
For many Argentines, the promise of a new order has translated into a harsher version of the old one: austerity without growth.
Moseley of West Virginia University believes Milei's fixation on inflation has left him politically vulnerable.
"I think to some extent Milei's economic reforms have been well received, in that they have provided a degree of stability in terms of month-to-month inflation that had been the biggest thorn in the side of the Peronist government under Alberto Fernandez," he says.
Corruption turns inward?
The challenge for Milei now is going beyond controlling inflation and actually improving the quality of life for Argentines, experts note.
"Many of his cuts to social programmes have negatively affected people’s livelihoods, prices are still relatively high, and wages are stagnant. The feeling now is that Argentina is stagnating, and at some point his government will need to be able to point to tangible evidence of growth," Moseley adds.
In Argentina, Milei's party remains small, and he relies on alliances with more traditional centre-right groups to pass legislation, something that is critical as his own support drops.
His defeat in Buenos Aires points to the fact that his message may not be fully resonating anymore with people considered his base.
Some lower middle class voters, who were promised relief from a political class that long ignored them, may be yet to see concrete benefits. Their verdict, when national midterms take place in October, may prove to be decisive.
For now, Milei insists he will double down on austerity and carry his fight into Congress. Yet even allies acknowledge that reversing the Buenos Aires result is critical if he is to avoid gridlock.
The president's biggest problem, experts argue, may be that the story of corruption, he once used as a weapon against opponents, has turned back on him.
The bribery scandal involving Argentina's disabilities agency has reinforced the notion that Milei might not be all that different from the governments of the past.
As Moseley puts it, "The pressure is on to at least partially reverse this result in October, otherwise Milei is going to have an even more difficult time pushing his agenda through Congress."
