Late October's legislative elections in Argentina gave President Javier Milei his first major test in the libertarian experiment of governance within the country. His coalition, La Libertad Avanza, came out victorious with around 40% of the national vote, achieving significant gains in both the Chamber of Deputies and within the Senate (although still short of a majority). Voter turnout came out to 68%, low by Argentine standards and especially significant considering the country's policy of compulsory voting.

These results mattered beyond gains made in the legislative body. This was a referendum on Milei's political program, on his sweeping effort to deregulate markets, slash public spending, and shrink the bureaucracy. In a country accustomed to populism of the redistributing sort, Milei has reversed the script and presented a platform which seeks to shrink the reach of the state. But the deeper issue raised by this election is not just what Milei stands for economically, but how he governs politically. His extensive use of presidential decrees has called into question that very commitment to abolishing government overreach. He is not only presenting a project of liberalization but one of executive dominance justified by permanent crisis.

This is actually rather common in Argentine politics; to understand this phenomenon, it helps to place Milei within Argentina's long history of oscillation between statistism and liberal retrenchment. Since Juan Domingo Perón's consolidation of the welfare state in the 1940s, the country has swung between expansionary populism and painful neoliberal reform. The privatizations of Carlos Menem during the 1990s briefly courted global markets but ultimately failed to do what was promised, ending in the 2001 collapse of the economy and breeding a profound distrust of neoliberalism. With each election and swing of the pendulum, disillusionment and resentment has grown. Is Milei's victory an aberration or merely a cyclical reassertion that the free market is this week's flavor of national savior?

Future economic outlook aside, it would seem Milei's rhetoric of "chainsaw economics" inverts an important part of the populist playbook. As Hungary's Orbán and Türkiye's Erdoğan expand the state in order to "protect the people," Milei seeks legitimacy through the minimization of the state's role in the lives of the Argentines. He fuses his economic beliefs with a zeal unmatched by other Argentine political personalities, portraying deregulation as moral cleansing and crowning himself monarch of freedom. He attacks bureaucrats, unions, and politicians, equating them to parasites which are actively feeding on the pockets of the nation and directly contributing to national decay. His televised tirades and monologues bypass institutions and craft an image of authenticity. His beliefs and purpose might distinguish him from Peronists, but his technique is very reminiscent of the archetypical: a populist South American caudillo. Milei uses anti-establishment rhetoric to erode constraints while claiming democratic legitimacy.

There is a large irony present in this discourse: the promise from his party, liberation from the state, seems to be in direct contradiction with the positions they hold in order to make that promise a reality. To dismantle the state swiftly, one must command it decisively. Mayors, governors, and legislators (including many allies) have begun to resist the velocity of reforms as deregulation and state removal from institutions and services has required a large amount of executive concentration of power. Here is where the irony becomes apparent: reformist rhetoric of freedom risks becoming authoritarian in execution. This contradiction reveals the core dilemma of Milei's presidency: to deliver libertarian outcomes, he increasingly relies on potentially illiberal means.

The constitutional strain lies in the tension created by the administration's utilization of Emergency Decrees (Decreto de Necesidad y Urgencia - DNUs). Argentina's 1853 Constitution, though amended and reinterpreted over time, was built on foundations of federal, congressional, and presidential equilibrium. Milei's program is placing strain on all three pillars. His push to recentralize decision-making within the executive undermines provincial autonomy, and his reliance on emergency decrees has caused congress to pass legislation to protect themselves (in a rare act of self-assertion). A system which is fatigued by decades of crisis management now faces a very real threat: the normalization of exceptional governance under the permanent justification of crisis and economic urgency.

Formally, the President insists he is acting within the letter of the law, citing Article 99.3 and its explanation on allowance of DNUs. Not everyone agrees. The Buenos Aires civil rights group ACIJ warned that, under Milei, the exception has "become the rule," normalising what should be a rare presidential prerogative into a "naturalised" practice of governance. Opposition figures described Milei's one-man lawmaking spree as a "subjugation" of legislative powers and an affront to the republican principle of separation of powers. Human Rights Watch cautioned that Milei's attempt to fill the courts by decree "undermined basic checks and balances" in Argentina's democracy. Over and over again the President's actions have risked eroding the Constitutional balance between a strong executive and the oversight roles of the legislature and the courts.

The Argentine Congress has made their perspective on the President's utilization of DNUs very clear. The Chamber of Deputies' October 2025 vote to restrict presidential emergency decrees revealed the unease among the legislature that Milei's revolution could morph into hyper-presidentialism. This landmark bill would flip the script on decrees, and instead of DNUs taking effect immediately unless struck down, they would require affirmative approval by both houses within 90 days for the DNU to remain in force. This is actually a shift back toward the original post-1994 intent of DNUs, before the 2006 Kirchner administration quietly weakened congressional control by stating that decrees do not expire and require both chambers in order to veto. This legislative change seems directly aimed at Milei in an effort to rein in his decree power. The President is expected to veto this bill and continue the back-and-forth institutional stress test. Regardless, this legislative pushback is significant: it marks one of the few moments since the 1994 constitutional reform where Congress has reasserted itself to defend the republican principle of lawmaking.

The judiciary has also acted. Lower courts quickly intervened against the parts of Milei's agenda which they saw as unconstitutional. In January 2024, the National Labor Court of Appeals struck down the entire labor chapter in DNU 70/2023, stating that law should come from Congress. The Supreme Court of Argentina has not been as active. Historically, the court has been reluctant to invalidate DNUs outright, finding insufficient grounds to overturn decrees in their entirety. Even though this is the case, specific components and provisions of multiple DNUs remain suspended per the lower courts.

There is an immediate concern of constitutional erosion. If a President can govern by decree on everything from the economic model to fiscal policy to citizen's rights, then the role of the legislature is diminished to objecting and complaining from the sidelines. Over time, increases in power toward the executive weaken the republican principle of checks and balances. Even though lawmakers and the judiciary have mounted some resistance, the threat of unilateralism alone can distort democratic processes. In this environment, Congress may feel pressured to pass laws on the executive's terms in order to avoid being bypassed entirely. This strain, the stretching of acceptable limits of executive action, has the possibility of snapping the normal functions of institutional checks.

This is a dangerous slippery slope, especially for a country such as Argentina which has a history of institutional instability and is particularly vulnerable to the normalization of emergency governance. If Milei's methods are validated by the court of public opinion or by a lack of action from Congress and the courts, future Presidents could cite this as precedent. The pattern of governing by emergency edict chips away at the notion of stable, rule-based governance. It creates an expectation in the public that changes come from the man with the pen, and not from parliamentary processes. In essence, Milei's behavior continues the caudillo phenomenon that has cursed South America for generations.

As Argentina unravels what these election results mean for their citizens and for their institutions, one thing is clear: voters have known of Milei's decree-heavy approach and have decided to get behind his "get things done" attitude. The President's win in these midterm elections could potentially embolden him to continue pushing the constitutional envelope, as his win might be considered an endorsement from the public. In these moments, it is important to remember that democratic erosion often does not happen in one dramatic instance, but in many small and gradual changes over the course of an administration. Justifiable responses to crises can morph into habits, and habits themselves have a nasty habit of turning into norms.

The discomfort evident within these institutions should not be taken lightly. This must be taken as a signal that Argentina's democracy, while resilient, is once again being tested by the most familiar of temptations: the strongman who promises salvation, and steps on liberal foundations in order to get his way.

Diego Amat is a Master in International Public Policy (MIPP) student at Johns Hopkins SAIS Europe. He is also a veteran of the US Air Force.