In less than one Month the far right have faced five important challenges and defeats in the Southern cone which could help to precipitate the collapse of Javier Milei’s libertarian experiment in Argentina and possibly even dismantle part of Trump’s destabilisation plans against left-wing governments in the region. Two of these defeats occurred on the vert same day: Monday the 17th of August, 2026.
First the lover of Milei’s former political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, a bolivian activist called Nadia Beller, was shot three times in an attempted assasination. She survived as did her child, she is pregnant. This led to the Cerimedo’s arrest at Viru-Viru airport in Santa Cruz de la Serra, Bolivia, as he tried to flee the country to Buenos Aires.
Second, that same day, one of Buenos Aire’s most expensive suburbs was the scene of hilarious act of political theatre in front of Peter Thiel’s mansion by a pageant (in Argentina they call these actions an escrache) by a local anti-technology group dressed as Gandalf singing football songs. This may not sound quite as serious as attempted murder but Thiel and Milei are buddies and this kind of exposure can be embarrassing to someone like Thiel who prefers to keep the addresses of many of his mansions out of the press.
Milei’s other political defeats came ten days earlier in August with the policy collapse of two ambitious ultra-libertarian laws which he had been working on for months with his Libertarian friends. Both initiatives were either voted down or hollowed out to such an extent that they are rendered largely ineffective. His proposals were extremely unpopular facing mass social protests from Argentine nationalists in the streets outside the National Congress. The usual vote selling by corrupt representatives was proving difficult for them politically. The Argentine public are old fashioned, they still believe their national territory should be protected by laws from excessive international land-grabs, certain politicians prefer to avoid selling votes in such emotive issues.
Milei’s most difficult problem stems from the internal stresses from this unworkable economic cult on the local Argentine economy are a direct result of Milei’s extremist neoliberal and libertarian economic ideas. Extreme level of contraction in the Argentine economy have been seen before, like toward the end of 2001 but they led to an internal economic collapse that was crushing and a massive default. Milei has already caused the loss of millions of jobs and his policies have forced tens of thousands of companies into bankruptcy. Milei’s market friendly proposals resulted in the tripling of local prices (in dollar terms) and services such as electricity water and gas have risen by over 1000%. Twenty million tax residents are now in technical default on at least one loan, the internal economy is dead on its feet and it is literally eating itself alive.
Candidate 2027
Milei’s candidature shows falling support in recent polls (see below) and may soon result in Javier Milei being replaced as the 2027 presidential candidate in the MIlei-Macri right-wing coalition of LLA and PRO parties on the right. Alternative choices are not yet public but various politicians have been very active of late including the current head of the LLA block in the Senate, Patricia Bullrich, the reactionary former security minister who lost against Milei as the PRO candidate in the last election. In July the University of Buenos Aires took a poll.
Other possible right wing presidential picks include the gormless Diego Santilli who also scored 29% positive rating and is now chief of staff replacing Milei’s first choice Manuel Adorni. Adorni was eliminated for corruption that was so obvious it could not be ignored even in Argentina. Santilli is also mooted as candidate to replace Axel Kiciloff, should KIciloff step down as governor of the State of Buenos Aires. Jorge Macri, commonly referred to as “Blackry”, is also a pick to be a Presidential candidate in 2027 for the far right. Blackry is now mayor of Buenos Aires, the second most powerful political position in the state.
Even as Cerimedo was arrested Bolivia, Blackry was bowing his head to Pastor Carlos Mraida who was asking the crowd to pray, not for the people of Buenos Aires, but for its government (that’s how christian nationalism works). The march for Jesus event took place on a massive stage in front of the National Congress in Buenos Aires. March for Jesus” marks the launch of Christian Nationalism in public in Buenos Aires copying US evangelical strategy where religious zealots tell thir flock who to vote for.
Blackry took to the microphone thanking Jesus for the recent pregnancy (and birth) of his latest child. His partner “Belén” was at his side. Belén is Spanish for Bethlehem. Blackry handed over to Pastor Mraida who asked Jesus to bless Backry’s government tough stance on petty crime in the impoverished neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires. “We thank God that pregnancy is no longer considered a disease” the Pastor added, “but children are considered rather as gifts from God”. This was Mraida’s radical right interpretation of Christian conservative Argentina.
Bolivia and the Cerimedo Affaire
Question (albeit rhetorical): What do (1) Argentine president Javier Milei, and (2) the now jailed former president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, and also (3) the current troubled president of Bolivia, US Citizen Rodrigo Paz, all have in common? Answer: They all rose to power with the help of online troll-farms put together by Fernando Cerimedo’s political campaign services deploying online manipulation in their election campaigns across Latin America. But beyond election services; Cerimedo goes even further when the going gets tough for the right.
Cerimedo was the only non-Brazilian citizen named in the litigation from “Operation Counter Coup” which was the reason Jair Bolsonaro was jailed for his involvement in an attempted Brazilian coup and the attempted murder of various people in Brazil including Lula Da Silva.
Cerimedo seems to be running a one man private CIA. As the going got tough for President Paz in Bolivia Cerimedo has been working essentially under cover out of Rodrigo Paz’s office in the Bolivian capital while the president has been under siege by various sectors of Bolivia society calling for his resignation. Business cards revealed when Cerimedos house was searched by police the next day reveal that he has been a busy boy and maybe had to leave town rather quickly.
Numen Public Consultancy is the most important of Cerimedo’s companies in terns of election services. Based out of Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires, Numen sells far right campaign management to various South and Central American presidential campaigns. Now it seems he is providing post-election devices too helping advise presidents when right-wing policies prove unpopular. Cerimedo was recently working in Bolivia on the campaign of President Rodrigo Paz and, it seems, he met a woman called Nadia Beller from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia’s second city.
Cerimedo was arrested at Viru-viru airport on the 17th of August 2026 in Santa Cruz (Bolivia’s second city). Nadia Beller, his (now former) girlfriend was shot three times by a motorbike death squad that arrived at her hotel disguised as a “Pedidos Ya!” delivery service. One of the motorbike couriers shot Ms. Beller then, believing she was dead, fled together with his partner on a stolen motorbike when their own get-away bike would not start.
Gandalf to the rescue of Argentine Elites
Palantir is a company jointly founded by Peter Thiel and Alex Karp with venture funding (VC) from the CIA start-up VC arm In-Q-Tel which helps invest in companies producing spook software for the US Central Intelligence Agency, The CIA. The CIA was Palantir’s only client for the first three years of initial deployment. Palantir now operates globally surveillance of individuals and corporations enabling mass spying on enemies, competition or even allies.
Palantir is named after an all-seeing eye in one of Thiel’s (and many other nerd’s) favourite childhood book, The Lord of the Rings. In that same book Gandalf the warlock (styled on the mythical character, Merlin the Magician) defeats the all-seeing eye of the Palantir and good defeats evil; hence the activists costumes.
Once Thiel’s investments in the Argentine fracked oil and gas fields in Neuquen were revealed by a quarterly SEC report earlier in August, the Gandalf gang began to make outfits preparing to sing soccer hooligan songs in a little dance of protest outside Thiel’s mansion with a banner that said (in English): “Thou shall not pass” advocating a very anti-libertarian restriction on further investment by Thiel in Argentina albeit the company that sold the shares to Thiel’s investment arm (a company called Vista registered in Mexico) rose in value 5% after the news leaked of the Thiel investment.
Inviolability of Property Law and Fire Management
Milei is a libertarian extremist, a member of a quirky sect on the far right called Rothbardian Libertarianism, sometimes also referred to as anarchocapitalism or propertarianism. What his curious theories advocate are very extreme positions on property ownership. Whether that property might be Peter Thiel’s ownership of shares in US Artificial Intelligence companies (such as Palantir or OpenAI) or the ownership of land or property titles in Argentina, like Thiel’s $12 million dollar mansion (picketed by Gandalf activists) or his fund’s purchase of more than 70 million dollars worth of oil and gas exploitation in Argentina’s largest oil field “Vaca Muerta”, Javi wants these properties to be protected forever.
Earlier in August Javier Milei’s coalition had tried to push through two major laws in one day; the Inviolability of Property Act (described above) and the Fire Management Law which sought to undermine the currently illegal practice (common in Patagonia where forested tourism areas are found in rural Argentina) of starting forest fires deliberately to burn out current residents then attempting to buy the land under these cleared forests in a literal “fire sale”.
Both property laws were either diluted or failed outright when Argentine citizen’s came into the streets in early August to protest the sale of their nation. Their view of Milei’s propertarian extremism –that would have literally allowed a foreign company or an oligarch to buy an Argentine province in its entirety (with or without forest fires) was very negative. Chants of “Don’t sell the nation!” Repeated across the Congress square as the crowds of 100’s of thousands demonstrated against the new laws.
Popularity and the Economy
Since Milei took power he has destroyed the internal economy in a desperate attempt to balance the budgets and pay off the Argentine debt. He has done this without fixing corruption (indeed making it worse) and without raising taxes on the rich (quite the opposite). Milei has followed the US playbook driving down taxation while religiously paying off (ever expanding national debt) which has made the top 1% of the population very much richer while leaving the bottom 70% in personal debt crisis.
While only a few leaks of Milei’s corruption have yet come to light to date, the costs to the state and to his followers are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Because the head of state in Argentina has immunity Milei will have to stay in power to avoid indictment, or he may need to leave the country which may be why Milei accepted Italian citizenship from his far right heroine, Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
Both the theft of $300 Millions in a $Libra crisis and the tens (or even hundreds) of millions stolen in the overpricing scandal where state medicines were overpriced to pay graft in collision with pharmaceutical labs. This so-called ANDIS crisis clearly show that corruption, under Milei, rather than being eliminated (as he promised in his campaign) has even grown into new sectors.
While Milei looks like he’s on his way out the opposition Peronist party is divided. Many of their deputies and senators voted against their whips selling their votes to Milei instead. Now his unpopularity is making them look worse too possibly affecting their reelection. It is all to play for in 2027.
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