The Otacon Party – an annual event for anime and manga fans at the Galicia Center in Buenos Aires – is typically apolitical. Attendees buy comics, Pikachu plushies, and sing karaoke, often in colorful costumes.
But in February 2019, one cosplayer stood out in the crowd.
“I am General Ancap,” the masked figure in a black-and-yellow superhero suit, holding a giant scepter, declared. “My mission is to kick the ass of those Keynesian and collectivist bastards who want to destroy our lives.”
While most superheroes battle monsters or evil geniuses, General Ancap (an acronym for anarcho-capitalism) – or his real-life alter ego, radical economist Javier Milei – sees the government as a criminal enterprise.
Four years later, General Ancap became Argentina's president.
Milei is known for his dramatic style. His appearance – mutton chops, disheveled hair – is as iconic as his superhero persona. The former pundit-turned-president is famous for eccentric antics: from brandishing a chainsaw at rallies to claiming telepathic communication with his dead dogs.
“Everyone who knows him understands he is not a balanced person,” Mariano Fernández, an economist at the University of CEMA (UCEMA) in Buenos Aires, told Al Jazeera. Fernández has known the president since his academic days in 2005 until Milei's entry into politics around 2020.
“His relationship with power, how he exercises it, his aggressiveness and erratic moods – that is what essentially defines the Milei government. It is a dictatorial, anarchic, and paranoid government,” Fernández said.
Elected on a promise to revive the crisis-stricken South American nation's economy through “shock therapy” – a controversial strategy involving business deregulation and sharp cuts in government spending – Milei's agenda has yielded mixed results.
His administration has also been embroiled in corruption scandals. Last year, his sister Karina – Milei's closest confidante – was implicated in a bribery scheme involving foreign pharmaceutical companies.
So what goes on inside the mind of the world leader nicknamed “El Loco” – “The Madman”? This article continues to unveil previously unknown hidden corners.
