BUENOS AIRES (AP) — Argentina’s right-wing presidential candidate Javier Milei met with International Monetary Fund officials on Friday to explain his economic proposals for the country, days after he became the favorite to win the October elections.
Milei, a conservative who wants to eliminate the central bank and replace the Argentine peso with the US dollar, surprised the South American country’s political class by capturing the largest number of votes in Sunday’s national primary elections.
Argentina, which has been mired in an economic crisis for years and is still reeling from the devastating drought that decimated the production of its cash crops, has a 30-month, $44 billion loan program underway with the IMF.
During the virtual meeting that lasted just over an hour, Milei and members of her economic team assured IMF representatives that they have no intention of suspending payments to that multilateral credit institution or defaulting on the country’s debt.
“We are not going to default on the IMF or the sovereign debt,” Milei told IMF officials, according to a message posted on social media by Darío Epstein, one of the candidate’s main economic advisers.
Miley also explained to the IMF representatives the economic platform for Argentina designed by her La Libertad Avanza party, which includes “an important fiscal adjustment, more important than the one demanded by the Fund itself,” according to a statement issued by the team. campaign of the presidential candidate.
Milei and her team also mentioned their plans to open up the economy, modernize labor laws, reduce spending through state reforms and a “monetary reform that ends the Central Bank” among other proposals.
Milei, 52, gained enormous popularity after lashing out on television at what she described as the country’s “political caste.” She obtained 30% of the votes in the nationwide primary elections held on Sunday in the country, by 28% of the main opposition bloc and 27% of the current government coalition.
The results of the primaries are seen as an indicator of the intention of the voters when they go to the polls in October.
Also this week, IMF officials met with economic advisers to Patricia Bullrich, the presidential candidate for the main opposition Together for Change coalition, said an IMF official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment.
“These meetings are part of the Fund’s regular and routine contacts with a wide range of political and economic referents,” the official said.
The government devalued the peso by around 20% against the dollar and raised its benchmark interest rate after Milei’s victory, which rocked markets over the possible presidency of a politician who describes himself as an “anarcho-capitalist.”
The peso also had a strong depreciation in the informal markets, which led to increases that will accelerate consumer prices in a country that already experiences annual inflation of more than 100%.
