Milei's party presents a heterogeneous group for the elections

Influencers , TV stars and former supporters of the leftist Peronist movement are among those representing Javier Milei in Argentina's midterm elections , after the libertarian president's sister built a national party from scratch in two years.

As her brother's chief of staff, Karina Milei was tasked with expanding her party, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), ahead of the provincial elections earlier this year and the legislative elections on October 26.

He adopted an ambitious "pure violet" approach, seeking candidates from the purple-branded party in most of Argentina's 24 regions, rather than relying primarily on alliances with more established coalitions.

This strategy has come under pressure in recent weeks.

In Buenos Aires province, home to nearly 40% of Argentines, the LLA's leading candidate, José Luis Espert, a right-wing legislator who joined the party last year, withdrew after admitting to receiving $200,000 from a businessman later charged with drug trafficking by U.S. authorities.

The runner-up, Karen Reichardt, a former model and actress whose current job is hosting a television show about dogs, briefly replaced Espert as the lead candidate last week. However, LLA appealed to the electoral court to demote her in favor of Diego Santilli, a politician from the PRO (Progressive Party), the traditional conservative party.

"The selection of candidates has been, to say the least, controversial," says Sergio Berensztein, an Argentine political consultant. "Some of them are strong, but most are peculiar."

Many of Milei's candidates come from outside politics , such as Laura Soldano, a physical and spiritual health influencer in the province of Córdoba, and Sergio Figliuolo, a streaming channel host and video game influencer in the province of Buenos Aires.

Meanwhile, others have backgrounds in Peronism, the main leftist opposition to Milei. In last month's Corrientes local elections, the LLA gubernatorial candidate had been elected just four years earlier as a councilor for a local branch of Peronism. He obtained less than 10% of the vote.

"They recruited a lot of people from the fringes of Peronism, as well as many people unknown in their provinces and in politics," explains Ignacio Labaqui, senior consultant at Medley Global Advisors. "While the latter isn't necessarily a problem, it means the only reason to vote for LLA is Milei's personal brand."

Challenge

This diverse group illustrates the challenge Milei faces in transforming an emerging movement that prides itself on being distinct from Argentina's corrupt political "caste" into an effective governing force.

Milei is touring the provinces to promote her candidates for the National Congress. Many of those elected will face a tough learning curve as legislators, at a time when Milei is trying to push through important structural reforms that Argentina has failed to pass for decades.

"I'm worried we'll end up with a larger bloc, but one that's really difficult to manage," said a senior government official, who was not authorized to speak publicly. "Our current legislators already have a hard time defending Milei's agenda."

Half a dozen legislators from the first major cohort of LLA, elected at the end of 2023 along with the president, have formally left the bloc due to internal disagreements. The party currently holds 37 of the 257 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and six of the 72 in the Senate.

"So far, they've brought a lot of unqualified people into Congress, and one would have thought they'd want to correct that situation in the midterm elections," says Berensztein, the consultant. "That doesn't seem to have been the criterion."

Some libertarians argue that Milei should have followed the strategy championed by Santiago Caputo, the political consultant who oversaw her successful 2023 campaign.

Analysts explain that Caputo pushed for the Libertarians to concentrate their resources in a few competitive provinces and partner with other parties elsewhere to cement alliances in Congress. But Karina Milei, whom Javier Milei has often referred to as "the boss," overruled him.

A corruption scandal involving Karina Milei has compounded the president's woes in recent weeks. Allegations that he accepted bribes , which he has called a smear campaign, emerged just before Buenos Aires' provincial elections in September. The Libertarians lost by a surprising 13-point margin to the Peronists.

The result alarmed the markets, triggering a slide in the peso that didn't stop until the U.S. Treasury intervened in Argentina's foreign exchange markets and agreed to a $20 billion currency swap with its central bank.

Several national LLA candidates are facing their own controversies. The main Libertarian Senate candidate for the province of Río Negro, Lorena Villaverde, posted a video on Instagram showing her failing a drug test, after her local rival from the PRO party accused her of having ties to the same businessman as Espert. "I'm not interested... in responding to insults," she said in the post. "Trust is earned through actions, not speeches."

However, given that Javier Milei's anti-establishment message was a central part of his 2023 campaign, harshly criticizing the economic mismanagement of previous governments, some libertarians argue that his sister was right to choose new faces.

"We have a mix to appeal to both voters who disdain politics and those who consider it important," says a provincial campaign strategist for the party. "Each campaigns with their own segments."

In the province of Córdoba, for example, the candidate leading the LLA list is businessman Gonzalo Roca, who told local media this month that "being a normal person... from the private sector" gave him more credibility to talk about the party's tax-cutting ambitions.

Second on the list, Soldano, the health influencer , criticized last month on Instagram that those questioning her experience did so because "while I was exercising five hours a day, they were living off the state and would do anything to keep doing so."

More traditional candidates lead the LLA list in some districts. For example, in the city of Buenos Aires, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich leads the list for the Senate.

In the province of Buenos Aires, LLA partnered with the right-wing PRO party. Its more traditional candidates appear on a joint list with libertarians like Reichardt.

Some libertarian voters express concern about the candidate selection. "I definitely don't like the old politicians, but these new ones..." says Cristián Loureiro, a Milei supporter and owner of several businesses in La Plata, Buenos Aires province, shaking his head. "I want people who know what they're doing, so Milei can carry out the reforms we need."

© The Financial Times Limited [2025]. All rights reserved. FT and Financial Times are registered trademarks of Financial Times Limited. Redistribution, copying, or modification is prohibited. EXPANSIÓN is solely responsible for this translation, and Financial Times Limited is not responsible for its accuracy.