Not Sure What This Means

It appears that there will be a runoff in the Argentine Presidential election.

It had been predicted (Feared?) that right wing nutjob Javier Milei would win outright in the first round, but not only did he not clear that hurdle, he came in second to Sergio Massa, (a Peronist, but no longer a member of THE Peronist PJ) so they will face off in the November runoff.

So we have the incumbent party facing off against a would be Trump/Bolsonaro/Johnson.

This was a surprise given his success in the primaries earlier this year. (There is an open primary, where anyone not getting 1.5% is dropped, then a general election where the winner has to get 45%, or 40% with a 10% margin above the 2nd place finisher, and if neither of these occur there is a runoff.)

Thoroughly confused?  I know that I am:

The eccentric far-right populist Javier Milei has failed to win the first round of Argentina’s presidential election, with the centrist finance minister Sergio Massa unexpectedly beating his radical challenger.

Supporters of Milei, a potty-mouthed political outsider described as an Argentinian mashup of Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro and Boris Johnson, had hoped he was heading for a sensational outright victory similar to Bolsonaro’s shock triumph in Brazil in 2018.

However, with 97% of votes counted on Sunday night, it was his Peronist rival Massa who won the day with 36.6% of the 26.3m votes cast. Milei – who has promised to abolish Argentina’s central bank and shun its biggest trade partners, China and Brazil – came second with 30%. The third main candidate, the conservative former security minister, Patricia Bullrich, finished third, with about 23.8%.

Massa, 51, and Milei, 53, will now face off in a second round on 19 November. For an outright victory, a candidate would have needed more than 45% of votes or more than 40% with a more than 10-point lead over their closest rival.

………

The result leaves Argentina poised for another month of profound uncertainty, economic turbulence and fake news before the showdown between Massa and Milei, a libertarian economist who only entered the world of politics when he was elected to congress in 2021. A Massa victory is not assured given that many of Bullrich’s right-wing voters may migrate to Milei.

—

As he cast his vote on Sunday, Milei, who shot to fame as a television pundit prone to rhapsodizing about tantric sex, claimed he could lead “the best government in history” if elected.

As Anna Russel would say, "I'm not making this up, you know."

What happens in November is anyone's guess.