Javier Milei and Payo Cubas. Counterpoints

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By Lorena Soler.*

Ar­gentina and Paraguay share a long com­mon his­tory. In ad­di­tion to the War of the Triple Al­liance, the death of Sarmiento, the ex­ile and re­turn of Perón, the re­turn of war tro­phies, po­lit­i­cal ex­iles and culi­nary transna­tion­al­iza­tion, they have re­cently shared two busi­ness­men pres­i­dents (Mauri­cio Macri and Ho­ra­cio Cartes) as part of the reper­toire of­fered by the new right wing. In the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, within this same reper­toire, two ex­tra-par­ti­san can­di­dates for pres­i­dent, Javier Milei and Payo Cubas, ap­pear in the elec­toral sce­nario of 2023, with some sin­gu­lar­i­ties that I would like to high­light.

In the first place, both are the cause and not the con­se­quence of a po­lit­i­cal sys­tem that has lit­tle to of­fer and of a world dis­or­der that pro­vides dif­fuse lib­eral or de­mo­c­ra­tic mod­els to em­u­late. They are part of what Steven Lev­it­sky and Daniel Zi­blatt have called the death of democ­racy and which Mar­cos Pérez Talía has al­ready re­viewed in this same space. In this sce­nario, then, how are the cur­rent con­gress­man Javier Milei of Ar­gentina and the for­mer sen­a­tor Payo Cubas of Paraguay sim­i­lar, and how are they dif­fer­ent?

Both po­lit­i­cal can­di­dates pre­sent them­selves with speeches cen­tered on the de­nun­ci­a­tion of the po­lit­i­cal class or “caste”. To fight against it, they seek to re­duce it to its min­i­mum ex­pres­sion, even at the cost of clos­ing ba­sic in­sti­tu­tions of rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­ra­cies and re­duc­ing state bu­reau­cracy. In the per­spec­tive of both, be­ing part of these in­sti­tu­tions over­comes a dou­ble moral prob­lem: on the one hand, it im­plies be­ing part of a cor­rupt ap­pa­ra­tus that in­fects the sub­jects; on the other hand, there is an eco­nomic cost of this par­a­sitic sys­tem that is ac­com­pa­nied by priv­i­leges that are fi­nanced with the “hunger of the peo­ple”. While Milei points out that “po­lit­i­cal par­a­sites hide be­hind the poor”, Payo Cubas pro­poses the death penalty for the cor­rupt.

Milei and Cubas pre­sent a di­chotomy be­tween the com­mon man vs. the po­lit­i­cal man (as if we all were not), con­cen­trat­ing the prob­lems of so­cial dys­func­tion­al­ity in the in­sti­tu­tions of the re­pub­lic or of the de­mo­c­ra­tic regime. If nec­es­sary, they pro­pose the clo­sure of Con­gress and the con­cen­tra­tion of de­ci­sions in the Ex­ec­u­tive Power, with­out rul­ing out the use of se­cu­rity forces.

both show that it is possible to do and transform a reality that, at times, seems to be designed by the coaching of the focus groups. All scripted. In the face of this, both Payo and Milei present formulas, which may sound magical, but what is politics if not the possibility of offering illusions? It could be said that, finally, political realism has eaten the campaign. And the alternative is phallic.

Both also pre­sent them­selves as out­siders, al­though they are part of the class they come to de­nounce. Payo is a long-time politi­cian: Mem­ber of the house of rep­re­sen­ta­tives (1993-1998), can­di­date for Gov­er­nor of Alto Paraná (1998) and can­di­date for Mayor of Ciu­dad del Este (2001). He was elected Sen­a­tor in 2018.  But, for the nar­ra­tive in which he is in­serted, he has in his fa­vor hav­ing been ex­pelled from the Up­per House (2019). That plus of le­git­i­macy al­lows him to say: I was there but I am not like “them”, so much so that I should have been ex­pelled. Milei, is an econ­o­mist in the fi­nan­cial sec­tor and in his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer he was a jour­nal­ist for news­pa­pers and ra­dios, re­cently an ac­tor and since 2019 he cre­ated his own party. In 2021 he was a can­di­date for mem­ber of the house for the City of Buenos Aires and be­came the third force in the dis­trict, af­ter “Jun­tos por el Cam­bio” and “Frente de To­dos.”

It is strik­ing that in no case are the prob­lems they ob­serve as dys­func­tional at­trib­ut­able to the eco­nomic elites (the busi­ness­men or landown­ers or any other dom­i­nant eco­nomic sub­ject), leav­ing the “guilt” to the po­lit­i­cal class and the state bu­reau­cracy. Per­haps, therein lies the idea of mer­i­toc­racy: that man in the pri­vate world har­vests, un­like man in the pub­lic sphere, the per­sonal ef­forts of his for­tune. How­ever, here Payo Cubas dif­fers from Javier Milei by pre­sent­ing a range of mea­sures aimed at gen­er­at­ing a more egal­i­tar­ian so­cial or­der.

Cubas pro­poses a na­tion­al­ist dis­course against the so-called brasiguayos (re­fer­ring to Paraguayans of Brazil­ian ori­gin who ap­pro­pri­ate land and en­gage in in­ten­sive agri­cul­ture), pro­poses to cre­ate taxes on in­come from agri­cul­tural ac­tiv­i­ties and a tax on the ex­port of com­modi­ties. He also claims to be heir to the col­orado tra­di­tion as a “ro­man­tic an­ar­chist, re­pub­li­can and na­tion­al­ist”.

In con­trast, much less het­ero­dox, Milei is a can­di­date more con­cerned about be­ing ac­cepted by the world of the eco­nomic es­tab­lish­ment -from where he comes from- and seeks the al­tar in old-fash­ioned pre­scrip­tions of a ne­olib­er­al­ism in dis­use. Dol­lar­iza­tion of the econ­omy, clos­ing of the Cen­tral Bank and elim­i­na­tion of all taxes that “are theft”.

The coun­ter­points also go to the styles and scope of their cam­paigns. Payo Cubas does not show a great in­vest­ment of money, and so­cial net­works have played in his fa­vor. He has a record num­ber of fol­low­ers on Tik­Tok and this shows his ca­pac­ity to ap­peal to cer­tain so­cial and age sec­tors. He does not have, like Milei, na­tional chains in re­lated me­dia. He does not wear fash­ion­able suits, does not have ad­vi­sors or hair­dressers, and does not live in the rich­est area of the city. Nor does he fi­nance his cam­paigns and in­crease his per­sonal for­tune with in­vi­ta­tions in dol­lars or as an in­flu­encer. Payo Cubas, son of a mil­i­tary man, al­ways dresses in aus­tere black, and flips burg­ers in the street to fi­nance his cam­paign. He is his own man­ager with a cell phone in his hand, from live to live, he takes pic­tures with or­di­nary cit­i­zens and knows by heart the prices of each cut of meat. The name of each of his move­ments ex­hibits this dif­fer­ence which, at the same time, serves as a slo­gan for these break­away politi­cians: “La Lib­er­tad Avanza” (Free­dom Ad­vances) is the name of Milei’s plat­form, while the Cubas move­ment was named “Cruzada Na­cional” (Na­tional Cru­sade).

From the news chan­nel “La Nación Mas”, Milei speaks to the Ar­gen­tine elite and par­tic­i­pates in the bunkers of busi­ness­men whom he tries to con­vince, while he pre­pares shows in black cloaks for young peo­ple to whom he of­fers free­dom. Very dif­fer­ent is Payo Cubas, who does not seek that elec­torate. He knew how to cre­ate the fig­ure of a politi­cian who openly con­fronts a rot­ten sys­tem, whose only avail­able means to fight is to “come for­ward” -paint­ing graf­fiti on the pros­e­cu­tor’s of­fice and houses of politi­cians sus­pected of cor­rup­tion, defe­cat­ing in the judge’s of­fice, among other di­rect ac­tions-. Thus, Pay­o’s state­ment “the belt will be the sym­bol of the rev­o­lu­tion”, be­came the mag­nif­i­cent phrase for a jaded elec­torate.

How­ever, be­yond their reps, it is very likely that both can­di­dates will reap their votes from the same so­cial sec­tors, those which, in ef­fect, the party can­di­dates have not been able to ap­peal to. Cubas and Milei will end up gath­er­ing the will of a so­cial sec­tor of cit­i­zens who see how their in­comes and wel­fare are de­grad­ing, and who in­creas­ingly dis­trust the ways in which the clas­sic pub­lic and rep­re­sen­ta­tive in­sti­tu­tions that fail to ful­fill their func­tions op­er­ate.

Both can­di­dates are, in some sense, the re­sult of the loss of a com­mon hori­zon, of a col­lec­tive pos­si­ble, of bro­ken ba­sic con­sen­suses and of cer­tain re­sponses that lib­eral democ­ra­cies failed to make. They are po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists who know how to read this un­easi­ness and trans­fig­ure it into elec­toral ca­pac­i­ties with un­cer­tain re­sults. Be­cause the right, as Pablo Ste­fanoni has al­ready said, pre­sents it­self with “re­bel­lious mod­els” while the left, and its de­riva­tions, watches in as­ton­ish­ment the dis­man­tling of the last rem­nants of a State that used to pre­sent some wel­fare am­bi­tions.

Payo and Milei, as­pire to gov­ern and they pre­sent very at­trac­tive mot­tos, in front of the im­po­tence of other can­di­dates and of the of­fi­cial­ism that usu­ally ar­gue at length the “why they have not been able to”. In both ex­po­nents, the struc­tural con­di­tion­ings are sus­pended, whether they be of the pan­demic, of the for­eign debt, of the unions or of the so­cial move­ments. Be­fore the im­pos­si­bil­ity, be­fore the Ho­mus Res­ig­na­tus that floods our com­mon sense, as Lu­cas Ru­binich says, both show that it is pos­si­ble to do and trans­form a re­al­ity that, at times, seems to be de­signed by the coach­ing of the fo­cus groups. All scripted. In the face of this, both Payo and Milei pre­sent for­mu­las, which may sound mag­i­cal, but what is pol­i­tics if not the pos­si­bil­ity of of­fer­ing il­lu­sions? It could be said that, fi­nally, po­lit­i­cal re­al­ism has eaten the cam­paign. And the al­ter­na­tive is phal­lic.

* Pro­fes­sor and re­searcher at CON­ICET, UBA and IEALC.

Cover im­age: Roberto Go­i­riz