POLITICS: The Most Important Election(s) of 2025 – USSA News

Javier Milei has generated amazingly good results in just 20 months.

But more reform is needed to undo the damage of 80 years of Peronism, which is why I explain that Argentina’s mid-term elections will be very important.

Milei wants to turn Argentina into the world’s freest economy.

That won’t be possible so long as the left has de facto control of the nation’s legislature.

So let’s examine the outlook for Milei and his party (La Libertad Avanza, or LLA) in the upcoming mid-term elections on October 26.

We’ll start with a look at Wikipedia’s summary of partisan divisions in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.

As you can see, Milei’s LLA party holds only a small fraction of the seats (16 percent in the Chamber of Deputies and 8 percent in the Senate).

But you can see that Milei and LLA have allies, particularly the PRO party (akin to establishment Republicans in that they sort of want to do what’s right but have a weak track record).

Unfortunately, the Peronists (known as either UP or Fuerza Patria) easily have the most seats, so Milei has very limited ability to get reforms through the legislature.

The bottom line is some of the big changes that are still needed, such as labor market liberalization and tax reform, will only happen if Milei and LLA do very well in the October mid-term elections.

In the Argentinian system, their Senate is like the U.S. Senate, with six-year terms and 1/3 of seats up for election every two years. The Argentinian Chamber of Deputies, unlike the U.S. House, has four-year terms and 1/2 of seats are up for election every two years.

Here is a breakdown of the seats held by various parties and how many are being contested this October. The key thing to notice is that Milei’s party (LLA) is defending very few seats while the Peronists (Fuerza Patria) are defending about half of their seats.

One final thing to understand is how members get elected.

Wikipedia has a good explanation.

• The 257 members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected by proportional representation in 24 multi-member constituencies based on the provinces (plus the City of Buenos Aires). Seats are allocated…with a 3% electoral threshold. In the 2025 election, 127 of the 257 seats are up for renewal for a four-year term.
• The 72 members of the Senate are elected in the same 24 constituencies, with three seats in each. The party receiving the most votes in each constituency wins two seats, with the third seat awarded to the second-placed party. The 2025 elections will see one-third of senators renewed, with eight provinces electing three senators.

These rules mean that it is important for LLA to get the most votes in each province, particularly in the Senate since that automatically means winning two (out of three) seats.

I’ll close by defining victory for Milei.

Based on my conversations in Buenos Aires last week, the top goal is winning a plurality of votes. In other words, LLA doesn’t need a majority of votes (highly unlikely in a system of proportional representation), but Milei’s party needs to get more votes than the Peronists.

Next, it will be impossible for Milei and LLA to win a majority of legislative seats. However, they would be in a position to declare victory if they wind up controlling 1/3 of the Chamber of Deputies and can flip at least five Peronist-controlled Senate seats.

Those outcomes would not give Milei and LLA full control of the legislature, but at least there would be the possibility to work with independent legislators to advance a second stage of reforms.

And those outcomes would eliminate any risk of the Peronists having enough power to push their statist agenda.

P.S. I’m not ready to make any predictions, but I’m cautiously optimistic based on recent polling data along with the results from some regional elections earlier this year.