This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum lives in or might be interested in. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
Argentina
All eyes have been trained on Juntos por el Cambio, the center right party that came third place in the first round of Presidential elections and got bumped out of running. Where will their support go in the runoff between Kirchnerist Economy Minister Sergio Massa and giga-libertarian Javier Milei? This was less obvious than it seemed because the party was somewhat torn between its more moderate side vs more conservative, free market side, led by former President Mauricio Macri.
Ultimately Macri apparently persuaded Presidential candidate Patricia Bullrich to endorse Milei, despite him being a huge dick to her throughout the election (“Among other things, Milei called Bullrich an 'assassin' and falsely accused her of planting bombs in kindergartens during her militant leftist youth.”) Bullrich conducted a press conference side by side Milei, offering her endorsement, but this doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll get her 24% share of the vote. Already moderates from within the coalition have balked, including JxC senators and the leaders of two allied parties, the Civic Coalition and the Radical Party. It’s still unclear what the results of the election will be, and less clear still if JxC will survive in its current form at all.
There's a lot going on, international media against right-wingers as usual, a lot of confirmed vote fraud across the country and more to come. I think this is really Argentina's last chance to get back on track, this elections are against the current administration, responsible for 50% of poverty, 140% inflation and so on.
It's a very well established political structure that will do anything to hold power and not much people can do, probably already a lost cause.
Tbh even if Milei was elected I can't imagine him being able to make major systemic changes. They won't be able to afford dollarization without a substantial loan no one wants to give them, and he won't have a significant mandate in the legislature to push the reforms he really wants. I think others here have mentioned that they would also need to modify the constitution to put restraints on the provinces' abilitiies to borrow from the government.
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