Milei’s party wins big in high-stakes Argentina polls, early results show

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La Libertad Avanza gets most votes nationally, as well as in the Buenos Aires province, early results and media tallies show.

Argentinian President Javier Milei’s party has pulled off a stunning win in Sunday’s legislative elections, according to early results, in a move that boosts his government’s ability to continue its economic overhaul.

Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza, scored 41.5 percent of the vote in Buenos Aires province, compared with 40.8 percent for the opposition Peronist coalition, according to official results.

Nationwide, La Libertad Avanza won 40.84 percent ​​of the votes in elections for the lower house of Congress, according to tallies in local media using numbers from electoral authorities.

The results widely reported also showed that Milei’s party won six of the eight provinces that voted to renew a third of the Senate.

In Sunday’s elections, Argentinians voted on nearly half the seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Congress, and for a third of those in the upper house, the Senate.

Milei was aiming to boost his small minority in Congress and maintain the support of United States President Donald Trump.

Earlier this month, Washington pledged a $40bn potential bailout, including a $20bn currency swap to stabilise the value of the peso, and a possible $20bn “facility”.

But Trump has threatened to pull away if his populist ally performs poorly, warning that “if he doesn’t win, we’re not going to waste our time, because you have somebody whose philosophy has no chance of making Argentina great again”.

Trump’s bailout plans have infuriated US farmers struggling amid his trade war with China, and many have questioned his “America First” credentials.