Upstart candidate Javier Milei says he’s pro-life. But for some Christians, his economic positions may be a bigger draw than his moral ones.
UPDATE (October 22, 2023): Libertarian upstart Javier Milei claimed 30 percent of the vote in Sunday’s election, running on a platform that would dramatically cut state services, swap the Argentine peso with the US dollar and put the country’s abortion laws to a referendum. Milei will face Peronist candidate and economy minister Sergio Massa in the November 19 runoff. Massa pulled out a surprise performance in the race, taking 36 percent of the vote.
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SALTA, ARGENTINA—Clutching a yellow flag with a lion’s head, the logo of her favorite presidential candidate, Alicia Ramos rushed to catch a glimpse of the fiery figure she hopes will transform Argentina: Javier Milei, a wild-haired, self-styled libertarian who is currently the country’s presidential front-runner.
Ramos, 29, was one of the hundreds of young people attending a Milei rally in the northern city of Salta, and she remembers the moment she decided to back the unconventional candidate. It was “when he started to speak about dollarization and inflation and, above all, that the country is going to be a liberal country,” she said, referring to Milei’s pledge to replace the country’s currency with the US dollar and use Argentine parlance (liberal) for a more free-market economy.
Ramos, an evangelical, has found that Milei also shares some of her moral values, mentioning her unhappiness with legislation on gender issues and abortion and the progressive politics of the current Peronist government of President Alberto Fernández and his vice president, former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The National Congress decriminalized abortion in 2020 over strong opposition from evangelicals and …