11-29-2023, 09:02 PM
The opposition coalition did field a candidate - several, in fact. Patricia Bullrich (a previous Minister of Security) was the front-runner among them. Sergio Massa was the leading Peronist coalition candidate. Those two and Milei (and some others) advanced to the October general election after the August primary. (Milei "won" the primary in the sense that he got more votes than anyone else - but a candidate only needed 1.5% in the primary to advance to the general.)
No one secured a majority In the October general election, so the top two vote-getters (Massa and Milei, in that order) went on to face off in a November runoff. Milei won, but to secure that victory and defeat Massa, he needed the support of the opposition coalition (Bullrich's faction) - and in order to do that, he had to come to terms with them.
IOW: Milei is not a unilateral dictator. He will have to accommodate the non-libertarian anti-Peronists who helped him win, and he cannot simply do as he would like (which would have been the case anyway, even if he had been able to win without the support of the opposition coalition). In fact, there will be times when he will have to do as he would not like. It remains to be seen how often and to what degree that is the case. That is the nature of politics (especially democratic politics) - and it is why politics is such a fraught and dicey venue in which to pursue liberty.
As I've said before:
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