The promise was meant to be enticing. "I'm going to take away the weight with which the State crushes you," Javier Milei told Argentina's top economic decision-makers, who gathered on August 24 for the Council of the Americas, an annual conference bringing together the country's political and economic elite, in Buenos Aires. Deregulation, "chainsawing" public spending, privatization of state-owned companies: Throughout the presidential campaign, the ultraliberal candidate in the running for the second round, which will take place on November 19, has been resolutely pro-business.

"Successful entrepreneurs are heroes (...), it's up to you to put Argentina back on its feet," said the far-right candidate, who came second in the first round on October 22 (30%), behind Peronist Sergio Massa (36.7%). However, within the business establishment, support for Milei, himself a former consultant in the private sector, remains rare.

"What he's proposing is impractical; his discourse is based on mathematical variables. Governing is something else. With him, it's a leap into the void," said a financial entrepreneur, speaking on condition of anonymity. The latter was present at the luncheon that Milei organized with business leaders on October 5 in Mar del Plata, 400 kilometers south of Buenos Aires, which took place at the same time as the annual summit of Argentina's Institute for Entrepreneurial Development, which brings together more than 400 of the country's biggest companies.

Faced with cautious businessmen and women, the outsider once again defended his flagship measure, the replacement of the national currency with the dollar, a move intended to combat soaring inflation (138% over one year). It's "a mirage," according to more than 200 economists of all stripes, signatories of an op-ed published on September 10. In their text, they underline the impossibility of "dollarizing" without sufficient dollars in reserves, but also the loss of monetary sovereignty such a measure would entail. "Eventually, Sergio Massa, who has social and trade union organizations on his side, will have more leeway than Javier Milei to implement fiscal adjustment policies," said the financial entrepreneur.

Massa, who has been economy minister since August 2022, managed to win in the first round despite galloping inflation and a poverty rate of 40%. His program remains vague. He is counting above all on the Peronist political apparatus, which is united behind his candidacy and represents the leading political force in Congress – albeit without a majority.

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