Argentina's Peronist Opposition Divided as Milei Seeks Second Term

A Movement Without a Leader

Argentina's Peronist opposition is confronting a leadership vacuum as it prepares to challenge President Javier Milei's bid for a second term, with the movement's most influential figure, former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, unable to run for office.

Fernández, 73, remains under house arrest in Buenos Aires serving a six-year corruption sentence, and the Supreme Court has banned her from holding public office for life. Yet her supporters gather several nights a week outside her apartment building, beating drums and chanting for her return to the presidency. She regularly appears on her third-floor balcony to wave to the crowds.

A Polarizing Legacy

More than a year after the Supreme Court upheld her conviction for defrauding the state during her two terms from 2007 to 2015, Fernández remains among Argentina's most polarizing figures. To her followers, she is a political prisoner punished for challenging powerful interests. To her critics, she embodies the corruption and economic mismanagement that have long plagued the country.

Her son, Peronist lawmaker Máximo Kirchner, recently praised the welfare programs of her earlier presidency at a rally marking the anniversary of a 2022 assassination attempt against her, but made no mention of her subsequent term as vice president under Alberto Fernández from 2019 to 2023, when triple-digit inflation helped propel Milei to power.

The Kicillof Question

Fernández's continued hold on the movement has complicated the ambitions of Buenos Aires province governor Axel Kicillof, her former economy minister who was once seen as her natural heir before the two fell out over leadership of the movement.

"Cristina is no longer its undisputed leader, but she has retained the ability to prevent new leadership from consolidating," said political scientist María Esperanza Casullo.

Opposition lawmaker Juan Grabois, who is trying to mend the rift between Kicillof and Fernández ahead of the October 2027 election, said the leadership crisis cannot be resolved democratically because Fernández cannot compete.

An Opening Amid Hardship

Peronists won roughly a third of the vote in last year's midterms and remain Milei's likeliest challengers in a presidential runoff next year. Frustration with Milei's austerity program has given the movement an opening, even as his budget cuts have brought annual inflation down from nearly 300% in 2024 to just over 30% this year.

Many Argentines have yet to see the promised economic revival: paychecks buy less, utilities cost more, and jobs are disappearing as cheap imports hit local industry.

Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters in the industrial city of Avellaneda, Kicillof accused Milei of tearing the country apart and called for building a broad national alternative. He avoided questions about his own presidential ambitions, saying it was a year for building rather than candidacies.

Kicillof has also reached beyond Argentina, joining like-minded politicians including Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez at a breakfast hosted by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, where he spoke of the need to build a world order based on social justice.

Stakes Beyond Argentina

How the opposition regroups could serve as a test case for progressive movements across Latin America that are reeling from election losses and facing pressure from the Trump administration. Milei, for his part, has framed the coming election in stark terms, warning that failing to reelect him would amount to societal self-destruction.