Argentina: Javier Milei's party surprises by winning legislative elections in the country's capital city

The Libertad Avanza, the political party of Javier Milei in Argentina, won the legislative elections in Buenos Aires. Although it was a district historically dominated by the party of former President Mauricio Macri, Manuel Adorni, current presidential spokesman and Milei's candidate, won first place with more than 30% of the votes.

With 99% of the votes counted, Adorni obtained 30.13%, followed by 27.35% for Leandro Santoro, who originally comes from the center-left but represented Peronism. Third place went to PRO, Macri's party, which, with Silvia Lospennato at its head, obtained its worst historical result in the city they have governed since 2007.

Due to the D'Hondt electoral system, all parties that obtained more than 3% of the votes received at least one seat in the City of Buenos Aires legislature. This also includes the party of the former mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta and the left, in this case represented by the anti-Israel candidate, Vanina Biassi. In other words, only 5 of the 17 candidates entered the legislature.

"It was not just a local election"

The government had been commenting that the results of this election would not only be local, since they would lay the foundations and projections for the mid-term elections, which will take place in October this year.

"What we chose today were two models. It was the model of the caste, the model of privilege, the model of the few and the model of freedom. And today freedom won, gentlemen, once again," Adorni expressed in his victory speech.

"The instrument for change is us, so we invite everyone, absolutely everyone, those who want to support this project, to support a serious change in the country, leave selfishness aside, leave personalisms aside, leave pettiness, and join this that is called La Libertad Avanza, and that is the instrument, I repeat, that society has chosen to change, to change this," he added.

President Milei shot against the party of former President Macri and remarked on the importance of this victory at the national level: "The truth is that it is important to be aware that today is a turning point for the ideas of freedom. Today the yellow bastion was painted in purple and from now on, let's paint the whole country in purple! Thank you!"

The turnout in these elections was 53%, the lowest in the last 28 years in the capital of the country.