Argentina wraps up campaigns ahead of presidential poll

Lomas de Zamora – Argentina’s tough-talking former security minister Patricia Bullrich wrapped up her presidential campaign Thursday, vowing to tackle crime, corruption and record inflation, while taking aim at her main rivals.

Bullrich’s rally in Lomas de Zamora, a city south of the capital, capped an electoral campaign marked by the spectacular surge of political outsider Javier Milei, who has seized on deep voter content with traditional parties.

Bullrich, 67, the presidential candidate for the center-right opposition coalition, slammed Milei’s proposals — including one to make it easier to buy guns.

“In the United States they go to the schools and kill children. Do we want that for Argentina? We are a civilized country, it’s not the law of the jungle,” said Bullrich.

She also criticized her other competitor, Economy Minister Sergio Massa, who has overseen record inflation levels, as the “worst economy minister we have ever had.”

Sunday’s presidential election comes as Latin America’s third-biggest economy reels from annual inflation of almost 140 percent and with 40 percent of the population living in poverty.

Bullrich, who was security minister under former president Mauricio Macri, has called for a harsh audit of the country’s plethora of social assistance programs, budget cuts, and a crackdown on crime.

Massa is the candidate of the center-left Peronist movement that has dominated Argentine politics for decades.

Fed-up voters see both Bullrich and Massa as representing governments who have proven unable to resolve the country’s deep economic crisis.  

Carpentry student Santiago Costilla, 21, was in the crowd backing Bullrich.

“In the last few months, I have become a bit afraid of Milei. We need to see if she (Bullrich) wins, but everyone wants Milei and that scares me.”

Unleashing torrents of swear words in his typical rock-star style, Milei closed his campaign on Wednesday, vowing to win in the first round.

“Give me the power so I can give it to you, so that we can be free, prosperous,” the Buenos Aires lawmaker told a crowd of 15,000 in Argentina’s capital city.

The 52-year-old plans who rails against the “thieving and useless political class” in power plans to dollarize the economy and has vowed to “dynamite” the Central Bank.

Milei has vowed to take a “chainsaw” to the public services and plans to ditch the ministries of health, education, gender and the environment, among others.

Massa held his main final campaign event on Tuesday, promising voters that “the worst is passing.”

To lure voters he has gone on a massive spending spree, cutting income tax for most citizens and granting cash handouts to workers, a move analysts say is likely to worsen the country’s fragile economic situation.

To win Sunday’s election outright, a candidate must score 45 percent, or 40 percent with 10 points distance from the nearest rival.