Bolivia & Argentina

There were no surprises in the second round of Bolivia’s presidential election, held last Sunday. (Read my report on the first round here.) With the left having been eliminated in the first round, the runoff was fought between right-wing candidate and former president Jorge Quiroga, and the more centrist Rodrigo Paz, the son of a former president.

Paz started a strong favorite, having led by more than four points in the first round, and was untroubled. Once again the official figures won’t load for me, but going by the details at the Spanish-language Wikipedia, he prevailed by about 635,000 votes, with 55.0%. Quiroga conceded defeat and congratulated his opponent. Turnout was 85.3%, down just slightly on the first round. But the large informal vote from the first round – attributed to Evo Morales’s call for a boycott – mostly disappeared, down from 22.4% to just 5.4%.

Paz’s presidency will mean a turn towards the market and away from the leftist policies of the Morales era, but a less radical one than would have been the case with Quiroga, who promised something more like the drastic reforms undertaken by Javier Milei in neighboring Argentina. Which makes this Sunday’s election in Argentina all the more interesting.

Milei himself is not on the ballot; his term as president has another two years to run. But midterm legislative elections will choose half of the seats in the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, and a third of the senators. A poor showing by Milei’s party and its allies would be a setback for his program and make his time in office considerably more difficult.

In the existing Chamber of Deputies, Milei’s party, Liberty Advances, holds 37 seats; the centre-right, which supports him, has another 35, plus 15 for assorted other allies, giving a government total of 87. The opposition Peronists have 98 seats, plus another five for the far left. In between are a range of mostly centrist parties known in Spanish as dialoguistas – not aligned with the government, but willing to negotiate with it on a case-by-case basis. They hold 67 seats, giving them the balance of power. In the Senate, the government’s position is a good deal worse. The Peronists have almost half the seats, 34 out of 72; the dialoguistas have 25, leaving the government with just 13.

But in both houses, the government and its allies (not surprisingly) did better last time, at the election Milei won, than two or four years earlier, when the members now retiring were elected. So the government only needs to maintain its vote from 2023 in order to significantly improve its position. In the lower house, only 38 of the government’s 87 members are up for election, but 50 of the 103 opposition are, and 39 of the 67 dialoguistas. Only two of the government’s 13 senators are up for election, but 15 of the 34 Peronists.

If the opinion polls are to be believed, Milei’s “libertarians” and the Peronists will have the field pretty much to themselves. Milei has been a polarising force; it looks like coming down to a vote for or against him, with both the traditional centre-right and the main centrist party, the Radicals, having difficulty finding relevance.

Milei’s reforms have so far been very successful, cutting inflation dramatically and returning Argentina’s budget to surplus after the economic chaos under his predecessors. No doubt it’s still early days, but prospects at this stage look good. He has also shown, despite his sometimes outlandish rhetoric, a willingness to work with the legislature and make compromises when necessary.

The other day I noted that far-right parties have been showing convergence in their programs; Milei is perhaps the exception that proves the rule. Although many pundits describe him as far right, he seems closer to being a real libertarian. He has given some rhetorical support to Donald Trump (and received some in return), but he has otherwise shown no inclination to Trumpism: his understanding of economics is almost the polar opposite of Trump’s.

But mid-term elections are a hard test for any government. Given the chance to hamstring their rulers, voters tend to take it. We’ll see if Argentina is any different.