The Milei factor enters the campaign

BarcelonaThe PP and Vox have designed a campaign whose main objective is to prevent the left from mobilizing. It is for this reason that their candidates, Alberto Núñez Feijóo (PP) and Santiago Abascal (Vox), avoided an uncomfortable photograph this Wednesday with the Argentine president, Javier Milei, a character known for his buffoonery and insults towards what he calls leftists (zurdos, in Spanish). The strategy, however, did not work out very well for them. First, because the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, skipped the veto and did indeed meet with Milei and took a photo with him. And second, because a kind of Streisand effect also occurred, that is to say, there was more talk about their interest in not coinciding with him than about the visit itself.

In any case, Milei's visit has captured all the media spotlight and, as expected, it did not disappoint. The Argentine president deployed at an event with businessmen and second-tier politicians from the PP and Vox his entire repertoire of outbursts and disrespect towards the current Spanish government. He labeled Pedro Sánchez a "dictator," a moment in which the audience applauded enthusiastically, and called for "kicking the socialists out."

Milei's speech, however, is full of logical holes. For example, on the one hand he said that Spain "is being invaded by immigrants," and on the other he acknowledged that in recent years hundreds of thousands of Argentines have come here and have been well received. He accuses the left of creating poverty when Argentina is currently experiencing a rise in poverty of up to 32.3%, according to his own government's statistics (data that independent organizations and universities question because they consider them to be much higher, by the way).

But what really draws attention to figures like Milei is their lack of respect for institutionality and democratic procedures. It had never happened before that a head of state visited Spain on three occasions and was not received by the authorities, but instead came to give explicit support to the opposition in an electoral contest. At the morning event in Madrid, Milei also applied the Trumpist manual when he accused a journalist from SER of being "intellectually short" and "miserable" for having asked him precisely if he considered that his visit was uncomfortable for the PP and Vox. During his previous speech, the Argentine president had already attacked Argentine journalists, in the same way that Donald Trump does against Americans.

There is no doubt that Milei and his policy of social cuts (he considers the concept of "social justice" to be a big lie) are a model for Vox. Their leaders José María Figaredo and Jorge Buxadé said that if they reached the government, Milei's famous chainsaw would fall short, because they would come in with a "bulldozer". This is the agenda that Vox, and also the PP, are now trying to hide on sensitive issues such as pensions. But the reality that has been seen this Wednesday is that the same people who applaud Milei are the ones who are eager for the arrival of the PP and Vox at Moncloa.