Argentina’s voters opted for relative newcomer libertarian candidate Javier Milei in the election for president over Sergio Massa who was the minister for the economy.

Polls indicate that he won by a comfortable margin, despite having been behind Sergio Massa after the first round of voting.

Reuters reports that the election outcome has been welcomed by the SRA, the Argentine rural society sector, which described the outcome as “a great opportunity has opened up to work together to make radical change to the current policies”.

CONINAGRO, the umbrella organisation for 350 agricultural co-operatives, also welcomed the president-elect and urged him to liberate the markets to generate more exports.

The outgoing administration in which Sergio Massa was minister for the economy regularly interfered with beef exports in an attempt to curb inflation and there is currently a ban on a selection of beef cuts that was scheduled to last until the end of this year.

Platform

The incoming president campaigned on a platform of slashing government expenditure, as well as cutting taxes and was pictured with a chainsaw as an onstage prop to reinforce his commitment.

He has also spoken of closing the Central Bank, scrapping the Argentinian peso and replacing it with the US dollar.

Argentina’s economy is in a particularly weak condition, with annual inflation running at 140% and the value of the currency has collapsed to ARS386 = €1 for the official rate, but the effective trading rate is much worse.

Arable crops account for over half of Argentina’s total exports and they are the fourth-highest exporter of beef in the world, though beef represents just around 3% of their total exports.