[VIDEO] VIDEO. Argentina: “Long live Freedom, damn it!”, ultraliberal populist Javier Milei inaugurated president

Ultraliberal Javier Milei became president of Argentina on Sunday, taking the oath of office three weeks after his resounding electoral victory as an outsider launched into politics barely two years ago.

Argentina’s twelfth president since the return of democracy 40 years ago, Javier Milei, 53, took the oath of office in Parliament “in the name of God, of the Fatherland and on the Holy Gospels”, swearing to honor with “loyalty and patriotism” the office of president. Then he put on the sky and white presidential sash.

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Following the brief ceremony, at midday, Javier Milei was to deliver his first speech as president, not in front of parliamentarians as is tradition, but from the steps of Parliament, in front of thousands of people gathered on a vast square, a sea of ​​Argentinian flags and jerseys of the Argentinian selection.

Ultraliberal shock

Milei, an economist best known for years as a popular polemical panelist on TV, has turned Argentine politics on its head. Elected deputy in 2021, he swept aside the Peronist (center-left) and right-wing blocs, which had alternated in power for 20 years, with a clear message.

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On November 19, he achieved a victory that surprised by its scale, winning in the second round of the presidential election against the outgoing centrist Economy Minister, Sergio Massa, with 55.6% of the vote. Third largest economy in Latin America but faced with chronic inflation, at 143% over one year, structural debt, and 40% poverty, Argentina is preparing for painful adjustments in the coming days or weeks, the president having promised shock therapy to reduce public spending.