Argentine peso plunges after anti-establishment presidential candidate, Javier Milei, wins primary

The Argentine peso has plunged in value after a man who admires Donald Trump won presidential primary elections.

Javier Milei, 52, and his Liberty Advances coalition took about 30% of the total vote, according to official results.

Candidates in the main opposition coalition, United for Change, took 28%, while the governing Union for the Homeland coalition achieved 27%.

Mr Milei, 52, won in 16 of the country’s 24 regions, appealing to voters angry about inflation at 116% and the country’s cost of living crisis.

The presidential election is due to be held in October.

Mr Milei, an economist, wears leather jackets, sings rock songs to his supporters and calls his political opponents “thieves”. He is nicknamed ‘the wig’ due to his unusual hairstyle.

A member of the lower house of Argentina’s Congress since 2021, he has pledged to shatter the political status quo and severely shrink the state.

He says Argentina’s central bank should be abolished and wants to replace the peso with the dollar.

The sale of human organs should be legal, he has said, while he characterises sex education as a ploy to destroy the family.

And while gun ownership is currently severely restricted in Argentina, Mr Milei proposes the “deregulation of the legal market”.

Following his primary win, the central bank allowed the peso to slide almost 20%.

The current government has grappled with triple-digit inflation, poverty reaching 40% and recurring debt crises.

In his closing campaign event last week, held in an arena, Mr Milei railed against the political elite “caste” who he describes as “robbers” taking money out of voters’ pockets.

Speaking after the primary results had been announced, he said: “We are facing the end of the caste model.

“Today we have stood up to say enough to the model of decadence. Today we took the first step for the reconstruction of Argentina.”