President-elect racing against the clock to remake gov’t

BUENOS AIRES (AP):

Argentina’s president-elect Javier Milei has called for the wholesale reinvention of the government but he has precious little time.

And with less than three weeks until his December 10 inauguration, Milei has no executive experience and few allies in his bullpen.

From the moment of the wild-haired outsider’s decisive victory on Sunday night, the clock started ticking. Argentina’s presidential transition period is one of the shortest in Latin America; it lasts at least six weeks in Colombia and two months in Brazil. Next year’s election in Mexico will feature a six-month handover.

Milei “is new to politics, leads a minor political party and has not built an experienced team. He could use more time to prepare his agenda, recruit advisers and senior officials, and build coalitions in the new Congress,” Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin America Program at the Washington-based Wilson Center, told The Associated Press. “This is especially important because Argentina is on the verge of collapse, so he will have no time for learning on the job.”

The key position to appoint is that of economy minister, given Argentina’s gaping budget deficit, depleted dollar reserves, and a $44 billion loan program with the International Monetary Fund that it must continue paying down. Four in 10 Argentines are living in poverty, annual inflation is running at the red-hot rate of 143 per cent and it is likely to continue accelerating, at least in the short term.

The White House said that President Joe Biden spoke with Milei Wednesday about “the strong relationship between the United States and Argentina on economic issues, on regional and multilateral cooperation, and on shared priorities, including advocating for the protection of human rights, addressing food insecurity and investing in clean energy”.

During his victory speech on Sunday night, Milei said that “Argentina’s situation is critical. The changes our country needs are drastic. There is no room for gradualism, no room for lukewarm measures.”

Milei rose to prominence as a television talking head who blasted the political elite as corrupt and self-serving. He parlayed that fame into a lawmaker’s seat two years ago with his newly founded political party. Then he defied almost all political experts’ predictions when he won the presidency.

A libertarian populist in a country where the state has an outsize presence, he was even more of a novelty. He has said he will halve the number of government ministries, slash public spending with his “chainsaw plan” and privatise each and every state-owned and state-run company that he can. He has also said he will get rid of the Central Bank.

Milei’s ambition to shrink the state requires personnel with a deep understanding of its minutiae in order to make decisions that are both bureaucratic and political, said Sergio Berensztein, a Buenos Aires-based political analyst. His official government proposal was thin on details and full of points like making it easier to buy handguns.

“This is planning for a war; you can’t just go ahead and without proper strategy start doing the thing. If you do that, it is going to fail,” Berensztein said by phone. “You have to do things correctly, need a plan, need a strategy ... So far, we have no indication whatsoever that is the case.”