Argentina - 2025 Election
Mid-term elections will go ahead on October 26 to elect around half the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and a third of the seats in the Senate. The election will also offer some insight into how voters feel about Argentina’s libertarian President Javier Milei, who enacted drastic public spending cuts aimed at reining in inflation but which also plunged Argentina into recession.
Argentina is a federal republic consisting of 23 provinces and an autonomous federal district, the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires. At the national level, the country has a presidential system that divides powers between a president, a bicameral congress, and a federal judiciary. A president is directly elected to serve as head of state and government and commander in chief of the armed forces for a four-year term and can be reelected for one consecutive term. The Argentine congress—consisting of the 257-member Chamber of Deputies and the 72-member Senate—exercises legislative powers. Deputies serve four-year terms, and half of the Chamber stands for reelection every two years. Senators serve six-year terms, and one-third of the Senate stands for reelection every two years. Argentine presidents' broad powers, including the ability to issue emergency decrees that carry the force of law without legislative approval, have led some academics to characterize Argentina's political system as a "hyper-presidentialism" in practice.
Argentina has had a strong democratic tradition since returning to democracy after more than seven years of rule under a military dictatorship from 1976 to 1983. The dictatorship employed state terrorism tactics to repress popular dissent, leading to the forced disappearance of thousands of people (up to 30,000, according to some Argentine human rights groups).
There were a few reports that the government or its agents committed arbitrary or unlawful killings during the year. Federal courts continued to prosecute suspects for enforced disappearances and crimes against humanity during the 1976-83 military dictatorship. As of September, there were 15 active trials with an estimated 208 suspects. During the year, a federal court in La Plata convicted two former police officers to life sentences for crimes against humanity; a federal court in the city of Buenos Aires convicted four former police and gendarmerie officers to 25 years in prison for crimes against humanity including the kidnapping, torture, and sexual abuse of 385 victims; and a court in Mar del Plata announced a new trial for 20 former military officers charged with crimes against humanity.
The Argentina Journalism Forum (FOPEA) reported that from January 1 to September 5, 2024, there were 108 incidents of violence and harassment against journalists. In September 2024, the Milei administration issued a decree under the 2016 Access to Information Law. The decree gave the executive branch greater discretion to withhold information, including visitor logs and expense reports, and restricted access to predecisional documents. Domestic press freedom watchdog organizations FOPEA and the Association of Argentine Journalistic Entities continued to warn that criminal groups “encroached” on freedom of expression by intimidating and threatening journalists, particularly in the city of Rosario, in Santa Fe Province.
Milei suffered a blow 07 September 2025 as his party was trounced by the left in Buenos Aires provincial elections, a contest widely viewed as a test of his government’s support. The defeat comes on the eve of mid-term polls, raising doubts over Milei’s political momentum. Milei vowed to "accelerate" his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections, ahead of highly anticipated midterms. The 54-year-old economist had slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party's "clear defeat" by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country's economic powerhouse.
A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified "mistakes" which he vowed to "correct" but said he would not be swayed "one millimeter" from his reform agenda. "We will deepen and accelerate it," he said at a muted election night event in the resort of Mar del Plata, where he took the stage in silence, in marked contrast to his usual dramatic entrance to rock music.
With 91 percent of the votes counted, the center-left Fuerza Patria coalition had taken over 47 percent of the vote against nearly 34 percent for Milei's ruling La Libertad Avanza (LLA), official results showed. Buenos Aires's votes are telling as a bellwether for Argentina. The province contributes more than 30 percent of Argentina's GDP and accounts for 40 percent of all eligible voters. The 13-point gap between Milei's party and the left was far greater than opinion polls had predicted. Turnout in the election was high, at around 63 percent.
The result poses major concerns for Milei, coming just six weeks before midterm elections. Some members of his party downplayed the extent of the defeat, pointing out that the LLA had nonetheless increased its share of legislators in Buenos Aires. The government went into the election under a cloud following a corruption scandal at the National Disability Agency involving the president's sister and right-hand woman, Karina Milei. In a sign of the anger among many Argentines over the affair, Milei and his sister were pelted with stones on the campaign trail outside Buenos Aires in late August, with skirmishes breaking out among supporters and opponents.
The ruling party's election drubbing came three days after Milei suffered a major setback when Congress overturned his veto of a law increasing allowances for disabled people. On the economic front, the self-described "anarcho-capitalist" is struggling also, despite success in fighting inflation and in erasing a fiscal deficit. Last week, his government began selling treasury dollars to stem the depreciation of the local currency, the peso, which had been accelerating in recent weeks despite high interest rates.
"We must learn from this (election defeat)," LLA candidate Diego Valenzuela told AFP, claiming that the result "was due to not engaging in economic populism, which is new in Argentina." His remarks were aimed at the Peronists, accused by Milei of leading South America's second-biggest economy to ruin through excessive spending and protectionism.
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