Buenos Aires, September 2023. Hundreds of people crowded around to wave flags and film on their phones. The man with unruly hair and sideburns in the centre of them, clad in a black leather jacket, hoisted a roaring chainsaw above his head.
This was an election rally taking place in the San Martín area of the Argentine capital a month before the presidential election - and the metaphor was explicit. The candidate Javier Milei believed the state was far too bloated, with annual debts that were bigger than Argentina's entire annual economic output.
Rather than 'trimming the fat', as some politicians delicately put it, he said he would take a chainsaw to ministries, subsidies and the ruling political class he derided as la casta - the caste.
Milei had form for stunts. In 2019, he dressed up in a libertarian superhero costume, purporting to be from Liberland - a land where no taxes are paid. In 2018, he smashed a piñata of the Central Bank on live television.
According to official data, inflation in 2023 topped 211% annually - Milei took office in December of that year. Roughly 40% of the population lived in poverty. Years of high public spending, and a reliance on printing more money and borrowing to cover deficits, had left the country in a cycle of debts and inflation.
Yet nearly two years on, the headline figures are vastly different: Argentina recorded its first fiscal surplus in 14 years and inflation, which had hit triple figures annually, has tumbled to roughly 36%.
The UK Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch called the measures Milei has taken a template for a future Conservative government. And in the US, President Donald Trump described Milei as my favourite president. They will meet in Washington on Tuesday.
Foreign investors regained confidence in Argentina too. Although that recently slipped, Washington's decision last week to swap $20bn (£15bn) in dollars for pesos, effectively propping up Argentina's currency with International Monetary Fund (IMF) backing, is a sign Milei's fiscal shock therapy has appeased international lenders.
Yet for all the international praise, this is just one side of the story. On the streets there have been heated protests over Milei's reforms, with police firing tear gas, rubber bullets and a water cannon during clashes. He said in his campaign that this adjustment would be paid for by 'la casta' – the wealthy, the politicians, the evil businessmen, says Mercedes D'Alessandro, a left-wing economist and senate candidate.
But, she argues, the result was less money for pensioners and hospitals. The adjustment in the end was directed at the working classes, not the caste.
Milei's critics argue that the price of his changes have been recession, job losses, weaker public services and declining household budgets. With midterm elections looming on 26 October, Argentina is about to deliver its verdict: will Milei be punished for doing what he set out to do — and could losing political support completely unravel his economic gains?
