The Guardian view on Argentina’s new president: a dark day for democracy | Editorial

The election of the far-right candidate Javier Milei reflects the seriousness of the country's problems - and threatens to deepen them

Javier Milei's landslide election victory, with 55.7% of the vote to his rival's 44.3%, is not only terrible news for Argentina but terrifying for many. In a country celebrating 40 years of hard-won democracy, the far-right economist threatens to turn the clock back.

It would be easy to mock the former TV celebrity and tantric sex coach, who wielded a chainsaw at rallies and promised that he would take it to the state. But his election as president is no joke. Among the 53-year-old libertarian's ideas are a referendum to overturn the legalisation of abortion, reducing gun ownership restrictions, making the trade in organs lawful, slashing social spending and abolishing the central bank. He has called the Argentina-born Pope Francis the representative of the evil one on Earth", smeared the victims of the military dictatorship as terrorists" and claimed that their death toll was far smaller than the accepted 30,000 figure.