Last Sunday elections on October 26 had unthinkable results and immediately changed the situation in our country. Here we analyze the triumph of Milei and Libertad Avanza. Even he did not expect such a result. It shook Peronism, that is going through a deep crisis in Buenos Aires, where it expected a strategic triumph that never happened. In this new context we also analyze and propose from the MST, what the Left Front-Unity should do from now on.
Originally published in Periodismo de Izquierda, written by Sergio García.
There is no media, analyst or consulting firm that, during the last month, especially after the government ‘s defeat in September and in the Parliament, has not predicted an electoral blow against Milei, at least, in considerable part of the country and especially in Buenos Aires. Multiple outcomes were expected, including the possibility that in the final stretch and with the support of the US, Milei could get some ground back and win in some provinces.
What was not expected, in any way, was that his triumph would be national and include the strategic Province of Buenos Aires. On Sunday night, Buenos Aires, CABA, Córdoba, Santa Fe and 15 provinces in total turned purple. It is a global result that opens a new political situation in the country. A before and an after. The series of political and parliamentary defeats that the government had gone through with struggle in the streets, is cut short. A new moment begins, where supported by its national electoral triumph, the government is preparing to launch a counter-offensive: the application of its entire reactionary and extreme right-wing project, the promotion of anti-worker laws such as pension, labor, tax and criminal reforms, among other structural changes demanded by imperialism and the most concentrated capitalism.
The elections have many edges to analyze, they cannot be explained by one or two elements, there is a multi-causality that generated this outcome. And even the triumph itself also has its limits, for example the fact of being the election with the lowest voter turnout (68%) since the return of democracy in 1983. But we cannot go into this integral analysis without taking the libertarian triumph as an evident and worrying fact, nor can we ignore the existence of an important social base that supports it and the possible and negative consequences for a large part of the population, if they advance and consolidate their model and project.
Reasons for an unexpected triumph
There are a series of issues that were incubated and related, evidently in the last few weeks, which ended up supporting the libertarian triumph. We speak of multicausality because it was so. We believe that different fringes of the population acted at the same time, and facts that hit those layers of the population and their political conscience, in its current stage.
On the one hand, the clear triumph of Peronism in September in Buenos Aires and the consequent publicity campaign of a PJ with the same old same old bragging about the possibility of its return to power, acted on a sector as a boomerang against Peronism itself. Because it is evident that a large part of the population does not want a return to the past of high inflation, adjustment and corruption of previous governments. A well thought-out pro-government campaign, behind the slogan “Freedom moves forward or Argentina goes backwards”, struck upon this sector, instilling this fear of a past, not too far away, which millions do not want.
Another element to take into account is that the full support of Trump and the US, combined with the threats of financial aid only if Milei won, had an effect on some sectors. Worried about not making ends meet today, but seeing in perspective an aid or certain chaos, they chose to prefer that promised support in the search for tranquility, in the sense that they perceive it. Not, of course, in what it actually implies; a surrender and absolute dependence, a leap in the loss of sovereignty, which in the long run is against our country and will have neither tranquility nor any solution.
There is also an evident fact that is part of the explanation of the triumph, which is the existence of a fringe of the population that opts for projects located on the right. It is not something new, it has always existed, in a more or less visible and developed form. In this world context of crisis and social and political polarization, it is more concentrated and finds, in this case, a leadership in Milei. That is why the whole PRO ends up within LLA assuming that reality and unifying politically and socially all this space of the right and extreme right. That buys all the chainsaw discourse, hatred and Yankee dependence. A politically very backward fringe of society, which represents that 40% of the voters and less than 30% of the real population. A fringe that does not express a social majority, but that allows Milei to be the first political minority and to win this triumph.
The failure of Peronism and the governors’ league
Another element that explains the result of Sunday, October 26, is the lamentable role of Peronism and of all the bourgeois opposition, since Milei has been in government. In the case of the PJ in all its variants, it is necessary to assimilate the obvious idea that they are not useful either as government or as opposition. In one way or another, sometimes some and sometimes others, have allowed the ruling party to apply its adjustment and chainsaw and not to stop it, not even when it was at its worst.
These last two months, when Milei was worse than ever, the CGT and all the main Peronist unions were more erased and absent from the streets than ever. If in 2024, forced by social pressure, they had to make some isolated and partial calls, now they did not even manage to do that. Leaving in evidence what they are: absolute accomplices of the libertarian officialism. It will not be strange now that they will again agree to negotiate the labor reform behind the backs of the workers.
All this accompanied at the political level, by all the referents and candidates of Fuerza Patria talking about waiting until 2027 and with the lukewarm and ineffective slogan of “stopping Milei” instead of calling for massive actions to defeat him in the streets, which was the only way to really stop him and avoid these electoral results, which now strengthen the government.
The league of governors grouped in United Provinces deserves a separate paragraph. They were the other big losers in this election and the reasons are similar. For almost two years they were voting everything to Milei in Congress, while in their provinces, starting with Córdoba and Santa Fe, they brutally adjusted and repressed, with a political model of the worst of the old politics. Nothing. And so they did.
The consequence of all this “opposition” disaster is in sight: a libertarian government reactivated in pursuit of its regressive and anti-popular project. The conclusion of all this, and in particular around all wings of the leadership of Peronism and Fuerza Patria, is that it does not go any further. That it is not and will not be a useful or positive alternative in this country. That the siren songs spread by a Massa, a Kicillof and even a Grabois, lead again and again from failure to failure. Because it is not a problem of individuals but of projects. And within the old and stagnant capitalist and verticalist political structure of the PJ, there is nothing positive for the future. The only genuine thing, which can be its workers and youth followers, deserve the possibility of reflecting on all this and open the way to a different experience. Because a central conclusion of the balance of these elections is that something new is urgently needed in the country. And that is only possible together with the left.
Possible perspectives
As we said at the beginning of this note, a new moment is opening up in the country. Signed by the attempt of the ruling party and imperialism to move forward rapidly towards structural changes and more adjustment and surrender. To try to do so, they have in their favor the combination of at least five elements: an electoral triumph that pushes them, the total support of imperialism, the support of the big local bourgeoisie, the complicity and inaction of the entire trade union bureaucracy and for now the lack of massive social responses or the overflow of old leaderships.
For these reasons we are going to face complex months, where the working class and the people in general will be attacked by new measures and laws against social and democratic rights. And surely emboldened by their electoral triumph, they will resume with more force their repressive policies and a much more authoritarian regime. We are facing all this in the coming months, with a strengthening of the government within the Parliament since December 10, where it will have 93 deputies and 22 senators of its own. And where, as always, allies who had temporarily distanced themselves, will surely return to support the government, following imperialist directives.
Preparing ourselves with strength from the bottom up
Of course, this must concern us and at the same time occupy us. We should not fall into skepticism nor into unilateral analysis. It is clear that the government has elements in its favor in the coming juncture. It is also true that there are counteracting elements that can and should be taken advantage of. Not to lose sight of the fact that it does not have a social majority. Do not forget that millions rejected his attack on Garrahan, the university, disability and retirees. Bear in mind that, taken globally, the majority of the population does not support them. Neither to lose sight of the fact that no electoral victory improves in itself the living conditions of millions of working families, and that this is a permanent engine of social discontent and possible new processes of struggle.
In short, we are going to face months of attacks from the government that we will have to confront in the streets. And very possibly the street will make itself felt more and more. Our task is to develop genuine demands and struggles from below, coordinating and unifying everything we can. Trusting in our own strength as a class and from that strength and conviction, of course, demanding from the bureaucratic leaderships to call for actions, without trusting them or having expectations, but exerting pressure in every workplace and union.
We have to know the complexity of the attacks coming from the government and the big bosses and also know that in the medium and long term everything will be decided, as always, in the street, in the class struggle that determines everything, over and above electoral results that can be important and at the same time limited to achieve qualitative changes in the relation of force between the classes. All this remains to be seen. The existing social and political polarization will be expressed even more in new chapters of open result and prognosis. And in that dispute we are not observers, but direct and convinced protagonists.
The Left Front vote
In the midst of a very complex situation, a notorious and positive fact is that our Frente de Izquierda was able to sustain a political space conquered, reaching 4% at national level, approaching the million votes and obtaining three national deputies: 1 for CABA and 2 for the Province of Buenos Aires. In both districts we were also ranked as the 3rd political force.
This good national vote and its achievements in new parliamentarians, was sustained by logical inequalities. Very good voting in CABA, exceeding 9%, the same percentage in Jujuy, although here we are going backwards from much better votes and we lost the deputy we had. Places where we exceeded 5%, such as Buenos Aires and Chubut, we were above 4% in Neuquén, Santa Cruz and San Luis, above 3% in Salta, Mendoza, Rio Negro and Tierra del Fuego, and 2.5% in Entre Ríos as MST and without being able to use the name Frente de Izquierda. Then there were weaker votes, such as in Córdoba, where it fell back notoriously to 2%, and similar results in Santa Fe and other provinces.
Our party, the MST, has once again been a very active part of this campaign, among other reasons for being one of the most nationally extended forces of the front, with militant presence in almost twenty provinces of the country. Besides being part of the seats won, in Buenos Aires with Ana Paredes Landman, who is now an elected national deputy, in the rotation of the FIT-U together with Nicolás del Caño and Romina Del Pla. And in CABA with Cele Fierro, who is also an elected national deputy, in the rotation together with Myriam Bregman. All as part of new political conquests of the front that must be put at the service of the struggle against all the plans of this government and the strengthening of an anti-capitalist and socialist alternative in our country.
At the same time, the voting of the Frente de Izquierda, as well as showing a positive face of consolidation of a fringe that resists any polarization, also has another more worrying face, which is a certain level of stagnation and of not being able to make a qualitative leap forward or attract new fringes to the left. That is why it keeps oscillating election after election, a little below or a little above the million national votes and with a number of deputies in general similar or those previously obtained. Hence, as socialist organizations we cannot see only one aspect of the balance of the front, but also look at it critically, question ourselves and think what other things we can do or what we are not doing, in order to appear as an alternative for other millions of workers and young people. Whoever does not ask or try to answer these questions, suffers from a conformism that is not at all useful for the enormous challenges ahead and for the development of the revolutionary left in the country. Who always has to see electoral participation as a political and tactical opportunity, an intervention that acts as a thermometer of the influence of the left on the population on this level, and that can well serve to encourage a more integral and strategic political influence, which logically is achieved far beyond an electoral process, in the workplaces, in the places of study, in the popular neighborhoods and in the political struggle of ideas and classes.
Finally, within the analysis of the left and outside the Frente de Izquierda in particular, a very negative balance has the weakened NMAS and its candidate Castañeira, who, with huge economic investments and permanent attacks to the FIT-U, is falling back to a more than scarce 0.5%. As a palpable sample of a deeply mistaken policy, being an increasingly sectarian, divisive, electoralist and personalist variant, with a repeated candidacy and without electoral support.
Common Party of the Left Front, PT What do we do now?
It is evident that in the Frente de Izquierda there are political agreements among those of us who are part of it, which allowed the existence of the front until today. And it is also notorious that there are important differences and nuances in other issues. All this has to be addressed seriously and without sweeping anything under the carpet. For us, while we debate everything that is necessary, there is a central issue to be resolved: what is and what should be the Left Front. Therein lies a neuralgic point of the present and above all of the future.
As we have already stated on different occasions, a first point is to fully decide to put an end to the limited format of being only an electoral front. At this point, breaking with all electoral logic should be out of the question, however, this is not the case. There are still forces of the front that do not even consider this problem, when the electoral model is evident that in fact it becomes an obstacle to a qualitative leap and to encourage the common intervention in other planes of the political and class struggle.
Recently the PTS, after a long time without making any proposal on these issues, has begun to promote the proposal for the formation of a PT, a Workers’ Party. In the first place, we always believe it is positive that proposals are added to the debate and exchange. In fact, and not by chance, in the last Assembly of Intellectuals, all the members agreed in their final declaration on the following: “For us it is a matter of taking the struggle against Milei to the plane of confrontation with the ‘powers that be’. And this will not come from the hand of Peronism or any electoral alchemy, for which reason we see it necessary to develop a profound discussion on the ways to set up a political alternative of the workers, women and the oppressed people”.(1)
In this same sense is the proposal that we from the MST have been raising: that our Left Front, with its anti-capitalist and socialist program, takes the step to transform itself into a common party, of freely and democratically organized tendencies, that allows the intervention in all planes of the political and class struggle, accepting in each issue majorities and minorities that will not be fixed or permanent and always acting with agreements and logical differences. We propose this variant, which is concrete and very possible to do, because we do not see today that there are independent workers currents that are considering forming a PT, for which reason its conformation is complex, and that does not mean that we are closed to that possibility arising in the future and it would be welcome if it happens. But today, in fact, the very leadership of the PTS is of the opinion that “there are still no tendencies in the trade unions that defend a project of this type” (2). Based on this fact, for the time being we propose to the comrades of the PTS that we develop this exchange in depth. Let them express how, in their opinion, the implementation of their proposal would be, what first steps they think should be taken.
For our part we consider that if those of us in the FIT-U, being socialist and workers currents, were to unite in a common party of tendencies, we would help this process towards a great alternative, taking a good step towards a revolutionary party of the workers, where Trotskyism has the leading role. And we could also encourage working class sectors to consider active political participation. These would be steps of the FIT-U that would help towards the same road of a great Workers Party in Argentina. Because even in a PT with independent workers currents there would also be organized tendencies, which is similar to what we propose. Only that we see it as important, that since there are still no workers currents promoting a PT, that the FIT-U takes that first step would contribute a lot towards the same objective. Concretely, we think that we should not leave for a tomorrow of uncertain date, the possibility of taking the first steps that can be done quickly if there is an agreement to do so.
For that reason, and valuing every exchange of proposals, we call upon the comrades of the PTS and the whole Left Front, the whole Assembly of Intellectuals, anti-bureaucratic union referents, social and groups that support our front, to carry out a great collective debate, a profound exchange that will help to take steps towards a great alternative for millions of workers and for the youth, in the strategy of a government of the workers and the left and a socialist society. As part of this need, we believe that a Great Congress or Open Assembly of the Left Front could be an instance that facilitates these debates of policy and strategy and the participation of thousands.
(1) Declaration of the Open Assembly of intellectuals and artists of the left, PDI 16/9/25
(2) The ways for the construction of a great party of the working class, LID 26/07/25.
