Simultaneous and Mandatory Open Primaries (PASO) were held last Sunday in Argentina. A big surprise was prepared by Javier Milei, from the party La Libertad Avanza. A surprising victory: the disillusionment with the ruling party was achieved not by the traditional opposition party, Together for Changes, but by a relatively new political group; polls gave him a maximum of 20% of the vote, and in the end he got 30%; he triumphed in 16 out of 24 districts in the country with a frontal liberal message. However, it is interesting how the world media presented him as a candidate of the “ultra-right”.

He was described in the Wall Street Journal as a right-wing outsider, populist and “social conservative”. The Times of London, as well as the Washington Post, described him as the Trump of Argentina. It is not new that in the developed world they think that we in developing countries are simply copying their fashion. It does not matter that the three mentioned leaders differ significantly in several opinions and public policy proposals. For much of the press, being on the “extreme right” or “ultra right” is anything that calls for a change in a non-left direction. This must be the reason why he turned out to be an “unclassified Argentine politician” to Federico Rivas, a journalist of Spain’s El País, Molina Milei.

When a candidate who defines himself as a liberal or libertarian appears, many in the press “run out of political language to describe him,” as economist Juan Ramón Rallo accuses.

So let’s go through the definitions. In her speech after PASO, as well as in many other high-profile public speeches, Milei repeated the definition of liberalism by her mentor Alberto Benegas Lynch (h) – a well-known classical liberal economist in Argentina: “Liberalism is respect for an unlimited commitment to someone else’s life project based on the principle non-aggression, and the defense of the right to life, liberty and private property. Its fundamental institutions are markets without state intervention, free competition, division of labor and social cooperation. This hardly fits with social conservatism, nationalism or even worse, fascism.

For example, Milei’s great proposal, dollarization, addresses a problem that worries the vast majority of Argentines: inflation. This is opposed by nationalists who see currency as part of national identity and supporters of monetary sovereignty. He is also in favor of opening a trade unilaterally.

It may be that his ubiquitous promise to promote a ban on abortion earned him the conservative label. But this is only the case for those who are unaware that pro-life and pro-abortion positions coexist within liberalism. On the other hand, Milei expressed that marriage is a contract between two parties in which the state should not intervene, that gender identity is a personal matter, that drugs should be legalized.

Fascist? What is really directly related to fascism in Argentina is Peronism, since its founder was inspired by Mussolini. (OR)