Milei's party wins Buenos Aires legislative elections

The Liberty Advances (LLA) party of Argentine President Javier Milei won the legislative elections in the city of Buenos Aires, this Sunday 18th. The city is a traditional stronghold of the center-right PRO movement, which came in third place, behind Peronism (center-left).

With 98.47% of the votes counted, the numbers confirm the victory of Manuel Adorni , who until now had been Milei's spokesperson. The politician won the race with 30.13% of the votes. Peronist Leandro Santoro came in second place, with 27.35% of the votes, and Silvia Lospennato, from the PRO, only got 15.93%. The results were released by the Buenos Aires Electoral Management Institute.

“Today the yellow bastion was painted violet,” said Milei as she celebrated the victory, referring to the colors that identify her party and the PRO, an acronym that has former president Mauricio Macri as its main leader. “And from now on, we will paint the entire country violet!”

“Today we choose between two models,” said Adorni, alluding to Peronism. “Between the model of caste, of privileges, of the few; and the model of freedom,” he said, repeating speeches made by the country’s president.

Peronism regrets defeat, but makes a positive assessment

After the data was released, Santoro, who was the favorite in many of the polls, asked to “put the election results into context” and highlighted that “the PRO, as a political project, stopped representing the majority of porteños”.

For political scientist Carlos Fara, “the PRO’s hegemony was broken after 20 years, and perhaps it is the beginning of an end, at least as a protagonist at a national level”.

“Although Milei's government has suffered some wear and tear over the last five months, the truth is that it tends to be the first minority in the mid-term election,” said the analyst in his column in the newspaper Diário Popular .

Center-right says PRO's defeat 'does not do the country any good'

Lospennato, in turn, said that the results this Sunday in Buenos Aires were not what was expected and considered that “it is not good for the country for the political discussion to become a discussion without democratic rules”.

(With information from AFP)