Javier Milei, a free-market radical, won the most votes in a primary ahead of general elections.

Hard rock music blared from the speakers as ten thousand fans cheered. A gigantic image of a roaring lion surrounded by fire lit up on screen. Jumping on stage, a man clad in a leather jacket whipped the crowd into a frenzy. “I am the lion!” he cried. “I am the king in a lost world.” It was not a rock concert. The speaker was Javier Milei, a libertarian who hopes to become Argentina’s next president, at a recent campaign rally. On August 13th Mr Milei took the most votes in a “blanket” primary, in which Argentines selected candidates to compete in presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for October 22nd, with the top-scoring candidate from each party going through to the main vote. Because voting in the primary is mandatory, the vote is widely seen as the best indicator of who might win the presidency.

Argentina’s notoriously unreliable polls had predicted that Together for Change, a centre-right coalition, would take the most votes, divided between its leading contenders. These are Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the moderate mayor of Buenos Aires, and Patricia Bullrich, a hawkish former security minister. Sergio Massa, the main candidate of the incumbent Peronist party, was expected to get a third of votes, and Mr Milei a fifth. Instead, Mr Milei took 30% of ballots cast, compared with 28% for Ms Bullrich and Mr Larreta combined. The ruling Peronists got 27%. Most surprisingly, Mr Milei won in 16 of Argentina’s 24 provinces.

Hard rock music blared from the speakers as ten thousand fans cheered. A gigantic image of a roaring lion surrounded by fire lit up on screen. Jumping on stage, a man clad in a leather jacket whipped the crowd into a frenzy. “I am the lion!” he cried. “I am the king in a lost world.” It was not a rock concert. The speaker was Javier Milei, a libertarian who hopes to become Argentina’s next president, at a recent campaign rally. On August 13th Mr Milei took the most votes in a “blanket” primary, in which Argentines selected candidates to compete in presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for October 22nd, with the top-scoring candidate from each party going through to the main vote. Because voting in the primary is mandatory, the vote is widely seen as the best indicator of who might win the presidency.

Argentina’s notoriously unreliable polls had predicted that Together for Change, a centre-right coalition, would take the most votes, divided between its leading contenders. These are Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the moderate mayor of Buenos Aires, and Patricia Bullrich, a hawkish former security minister. Sergio Massa, the main candidate of the incumbent Peronist party, was expected to get a third of votes, and Mr Milei a fifth. Instead, Mr Milei took 30% of ballots cast, compared with 28% for Ms Bullrich and Mr Larreta combined. The ruling Peronists got 27%. Most surprisingly, Mr Milei won in 16 of Argentina’s 24 provinces.

Mr Milei channels many Argentines’ frustration with their country’s chronic economic dysfunction. Annual inflation is 116%, higher than anywhere else in the world except for Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Lebanon. Crushing taxes lead many businesses to operate off the books. Capital controls make it nigh impossible for Argentines to buy dollars legally, the currency they prefer to save in. This has led to a gigantic black market for greenbacks, the price of which is used as a proxy for the state of the economy. Today a black market dollar costs around 600 pesos, double what it did a year ago. Until the poll, the official rate was half that. The day after it, fears of increased political uncertainty led the central bank to devalue the peso by 20%, and raise the policy interest rate by 21 percentage points to 118%. The devaluation of the peso is likely to increase inflation further in the coming weeks.

All this has made Mr Milei, who says his proposals amount to a “chainsaw plan” because they are so radical, increasingly attractive. Mr Milei wants to dollarise the economy, though the details of his plan are unclear. He promises to cut spending drastically, lift currency and price controls and “blow up” the central bank. These policies appear to have overshadowed more off-putting proposals, such as banning abortion, allowing Argentines to carry guns freely and legalising a market in human organs.

Yet Mr Milei won the night less because of his policies than because of his attacks on other politicians. Before being elected to Congress in 2021, Mr Milei worked as a consultant and economics professor. His bombastic personality has given him cult status. He claims not to have brushed his hair since he was 13 and lives with five mastiffs, four of which are named after economists. His campaign manager is his sister Karina (pictured with him), whom he has compared to Moses. He bills himself as an outsider and rails against what he calls “the political caste.” Argentina has been mismanaged by a left-wing government for much of the past two decades. Yet last time Together for Change was in charge, the administration also ended in crisis. At rallies, Mr Milei’s supporters chant: “Get rid of them all!”

Hard rock music blared from the speakers as ten thousand fans cheered. A gigantic image of a roaring lion surrounded by fire lit up on screen. Jumping on stage, a man clad in a leather jacket whipped the crowd into a frenzy. “I am the lion!” he cried. “I am the king in a lost world.” It was not a rock concert. The speaker was Javier Milei, a libertarian who hopes to become Argentina’s next president, at a recent campaign rally. On August 13th Mr Milei took the most votes in a “blanket” primary, in which Argentines selected candidates to compete in presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for October 22nd, with the top-scoring candidate from each party going through to the main vote. Because voting in the primary is mandatory, the vote is widely seen as the best indicator of who might win the presidency.

Argentina’s notoriously unreliable polls had predicted that Together for Change, a centre-right coalition, would take the most votes, divided between its leading contenders. These are Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, the moderate mayor of Buenos Aires, and Patricia Bullrich, a hawkish former security minister. Sergio Massa, the main candidate of the incumbent Peronist party, was expected to get a third of votes, and Mr Milei a fifth. Instead, Mr Milei took 30% of ballots cast, compared with 28% for Ms Bullrich and Mr Larreta combined. The ruling Peronists got 27%. Most surprisingly, Mr Milei won in 16 of Argentina’s 24 provinces.

Mr Milei channels many Argentines’ frustration with their country’s chronic economic dysfunction. Annual inflation is 116%, higher than anywhere else in the world except for Venezuela, Zimbabwe and Lebanon. Crushing taxes lead many businesses to operate off the books. Capital controls make it nigh impossible for Argentines to buy dollars legally, the currency they prefer to save in. This has led to a gigantic black market for greenbacks, the price of which is used as a proxy for the state of the economy. Today a black market dollar costs around 600 pesos, double what it did a year ago. Until the poll, the official rate was half that. The day after it, fears of increased political uncertainty led the central bank to devalue the peso by 20%, and raise the policy interest rate by 21 percentage points to 118%. The devaluation of the peso is likely to increase inflation further in the coming weeks.

All this has made Mr Milei, who says his proposals amount to a “chainsaw plan” because they are so radical, increasingly attractive. Mr Milei wants to dollarise the economy, though the details of his plan are unclear. He promises to cut spending drastically, lift currency and price controls and “blow up” the central bank. These policies appear to have overshadowed more off-putting proposals, such as banning abortion, allowing Argentines to carry guns freely and legalising a market in human organs.

Yet Mr Milei won the night less because of his policies than because of his attacks on other politicians. Before being elected to Congress in 2021, Mr Milei worked as a consultant and economics professor. His bombastic personality has given him cult status. He claims not to have brushed his hair since he was 13 and lives with five mastiffs, four of which are named after economists. His campaign manager is his sister Karina (pictured with him), whom he has compared to Moses. He bills himself as an outsider and rails against what he calls “the political caste.” Argentina has been mismanaged by a left-wing government for much of the past two decades. Yet last time Together for Change was in charge, the administration also ended in crisis. At rallies, Mr Milei’s supporters chant: “Get rid of them all!”

If Mr Milei wins, he may find it hard to govern. Currently, his coalition has only two seats out of 257 in Congress, and none in the Senate (though in the first round of the election in October 130 seats out of 157 in Congress, and a third of the Senate, will be up for grabs). International relations would be tricky. Latin America is currently dominated by left-wing governments, which would be hostile to Mr Milei, who has received support from Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former populist right-wing president.

Things could still look up for Mr Milei. Juan Cruz Díaz of Cefeidas Group, a consultancy in Buenos Aires, thinks his strong showing in the provinces means he could get at least 30 deputies elected to Congress in the general election. Several heavyweights have recently joined his team, such as Roque Fernández, a former economy minister under Carlos Menem (a liberal president who ruled in the 1990s), and Diana Mondino, an economist who used to run the Latin America division for Standard & Poors, a ratings agency. They “speak the language that investors trust,” says Mr Díaz. Many legislators from Together for Change would probably support Mr Milei’s presidency.

The road to the presidency is still uncertain. It is unclear how many more voters Mr Milei will be able to attract, while Ms Bullrich, who was selected as the candidate for Together for Change, will try to peel away his supporters. Mr Massa, who nabbed a fifth of votes, could benefit from the struggle between Mr Milei and Ms Bullrich by appealing to moderates. If no candidate gets at least 45% of votes, or 40% with a ten-point margin over the runner-up, the election will go to a run-off in November. Mr Milei’s 53rd birthday coincides with the first round. His gift may be the task of rebuilding a broken country.