Statement 06-2023

PRESIDENT MILEI: SUCCESS OR FAILURE?

“Javier Milei does not represent us" we titled our official communiqué of October 13. And on November 19, in the election balloting, Javier Milei became president of Argentina with a majority of 56%, and more than 2 million votes over his opponent. Is this good or bad news? Does he represent us or not?

And most importantly, will his government be a success, or will it be another Jair Bolsonaro-like failure? We have something to say about that.

In the Latin American Liberal Forum, the promoters of the Five Reforms Project cultivate "transitology", a multidisciplinary space in Social Sciences that studies the processes of transition from statism to capitalism in 30 countries of the world, more than 40 cases. Very few have been successful cases, because there are several conditions, not easy to meet. The first and foremost of these conditions is a solid and suitable political party to lead structural reforms.

President Jair Bolsonaro lacked this condition, among others, and that is why he failed. At the head of a very heterogeneous team, he was unable to turn a winning "electoral coalition" into a successful "coalition government". In spite of his long political experience, his 4 years passed without any fundamental reforms, because his government was the battlefield of a fierce internal war between different factions, each one with its own "agenda", and without a common agenda agreed upon by the rulers.

The candidate Javier Milei did not represent us because he is not a classic liberal, he is a “libertarian”, according to his own innumerable declarations. And because his closest spokesmen make up a very heterogeneous group. After the first round, he represented us much less, because on October 22, he made a close alliance with Mauricio Macri's sector, a failed former president who expresses the worst of “mercantilism”, historical enemy of classical liberalism since the times of Adam Smith and Frederic Bastiat.

Does this mean that we are betting on President Milei's failure, as we are accused of? No, not at all. Besides all the leftists, Peronists and non-Peronists, those who are betting on Javier Milei's failure are not us, the classical liberals, but the fanatics of their own tribe: the “anarchy-libertarians”. You can see in the social networks how they are already rubbing their hands together, because Milei's failure for them would be the failure of politics, democratic above all, which they detest with all their guts, for which they have been militating against us for many years.

At the time we did not bet on Bolsonaro's failure either. On the contrary, in 2019, when he became president, he gave us a lot of hope, but we made due warnings on this issue: the conditions of success for a successful transition from statism to capitalism. That is: transitology. And two and a half years later, when his failure was already visible because structural reforms were not made, we published a video on July 14, 2021 entitled "The Bolsonaro case, a failure that affects us".

Unlike the “Anarcho-capitalists” we do not bet on Milei's failure, which would be even greater than Bolsonaro's, and would affect us liberals much more, negatively of course. But as with Bolsonaro, we make due caveats, about several conditions required for a successful transition.

Because we learned a lot from the author of the “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia, 1989, when former President Václav Klaus travelled to Guatemala in 2018 to meet with us to teach us and talk about "transitology", a subject in which we became experts. We listened attentively.

We also always listen to several great teachers, among them Ron Paul, another of our greatest referents, who is now also giving wise warnings to Javier Milei on international policy issues, which he should listen to. The president-elect should also listen to us, because we have a lot to tell him. Modesty aside, we could make valuable contributions to him. But only those who want to listen will listen.

So as we did with Bolsonaro, we heartily congratulate, applaud and wish the new Argentine president every success, but it is our duty to warn him: Please listen, president.

Signants:

November 23, 2023

President José Luis Tapia Rocha, Perú	Myriam Ortiz, Perú
Jorge Chapas, Guatemala	Héctor Muñoz, Guatemala
Alberto Mansueti, Argentina	Erick García, México
Sonia Calderón, Costa Rica	Otman Domínguez, Colombia
Pablo Paiva, Uruguay	Gustavo Romero, Perú
Rodrigo Mora, Chile	Daniel Rocha, Bolivia
Manuel Alarcón, Chile	Aleida Paredes, México
Carlos Arenas, Guatemala

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