What if Bregman wins?: "A real (but quick) exit on the left"

Yesterday we Argentines saw the Trotskyist deputy Myriam Bregman appear at a opposition press conference to the government of Javier Milei, with leaders of Peronism located behind.

"Debt is a scam, there are no debtors, there are fraudsters," said the deputy of the Left Front in this meeting, organized in the run-up to the special session of the Chamber of Deputies scheduled for September 9, in which the opposition (Peronism, the FIT and other spaces) with a total of 133 deputies seeks to address the over-indebtedness of millions of families and the extension of the disability emergency. This claim arises from the fierce increase in credit default (of approximately 12%), driven by debts in cards and apps (such as MercadoPago) to cover basic needs in the face of the fall in the purchasing power of wages and pensions in the country.

Returning to Bregman and Peronism, who understands the basics of politics in general will see how unusual it is for a force with an average floor of 30% of the votes to cede a central space to a leader of a force with an average ceiling of 5%. Those who have some experience observing Argentine politics understand the magnitude of the impact that this will have generated, especially among the ranks of the beleaguered Peronist militancy. Those who have a little more experience can point out that, following the karmas and mantras that surround Argentine politics, it is not so surprising.

Parallel to the issues to be addressed in that session are the symbolisms that arise from seeing Bregman "leading" an opposition process. The surprise rise of the Trotskyist leader in some polls of voting intention in Argentina, her relatively high positive image and the discussions that this generates are undoubtedly worth studying. The fact that the candidate of a far-left space is on the verge of exceeding 10% of voting intention would raise comments in practically any country. And Argentina, although accustomed to surprises in these three years of libertarian government, is no exception.

As we say here, Argentina is a country that you leave for twenty years and nothing changed, but you leave for 15 minutes and everything changed. We therefore act against the clock when writing this article. However, here is a very quick review of the "Myriam Bregman phenomenon", who it is and where it comes from (mostly for foreign readers) and, for the mere purpose of exercising a utopia (or dystopia, depending on the opinion), ask ourselves what would happen if for some reason the deputy went so far as to wear the presidential band.

Who is Myriam Bregman?

It is worth reviewing the biographical trajectory of Bregman herself. Of Jewish origin, born in 1972 in a town in western Buenos Aires, she is a lawyer at the University of Buenos Aires. It was during her university years that he began to serve in the then marginal Socialist Workers Party, of which he has been a member ever since. In 1997 he co-founded the Centre of Professionals for Human Rights (CeProDH).

Bregman's legal career involves her in high-profile cases both in terms of human rights and as a representative of workers' groups in labor lawsuits with a strong media impact. Among other things, he was a plaintiff in cases against direct repressors of the last Argentine military dictatorship, such as Miguel Etchecolatz and Jorge "Tigre" Acosta.

Bregman has developed her electoral career more than anything in the City of Buenos Aires. She ran as a candidate for head of government in 2011, garnering less than 1% of the vote. In 2013, she was ranked second on the FIT list for Buenos Aires legislators, but she was not elected. He again competed for the capital's leadership in 2015, this time climbing to 3%. Months later she was a candidate for vice president and running mate of Nicolás del Caño, with a similar result nationwide.

In 2017, Bregman topped the FIT list for the Buenos Aires legislature, garnering 6.3% of the vote and reaching elected office for the first time. In 2021 she was a candidate for national deputy, leading a vigorous campaign in which she directly confronted Javier Milei and benefited from loud crosses with him in the debates. She managed to reach almost 8% of the preferences in the capital, enough to reach the Chamber of Deputies. She held the position until 2024, when she resigned following the FIT-U's "rotation in office" policy.

In 2023, Bregman ran as a candidate for president of the Nation. In the primaries she managed to defeat an internal challenge within the FIT-U by Gabriel Solano, from the most ideologically aggressive wing of the coalition. However, she was harmed by the accelerated agglutination of the progressive vote around Sergio Massa and ended up with 2.7% of the preferences in the general elections, below what was obtained by the FIT-U in previous cycles.

Despite this setback, Bregman once again led the lists of deputies of the capital in the mid-term legislative elections of 2025, where she led the FIT-U to its best historical result in the city with 9%, thus returning to the Chamber of Deputies.

What is the Left Front?

In contrast to other personalist electoral phenomena in Argentina (such as Macri and Milei in cases where this resulted in a presidency, or Massa in the case of those who were close but did not arrive), in Bregman's case the party comes before the leader. This gives an opportunity to briefly review Argentine Trotskyism as a space, the FIT-U as a political force.

In Argentina, the "institutional left" (which in other countries occupies everything from social democracy to democratic socialists) has been co-opted electorally by Peronism and by some factions of radicalism. This has led in many cases to more moderate leftist sectors tending to cooperate or coalesce with the PJ and the UCR rather than resorting to third forces unable to compete electorally.

This context, which would deepen later with the end of the Cold War and crises such as that of 2001, has given rise to Trotskyism (marginal in almost any other country), which has been able to gradually establish itself as the most powerful expression of the non-Peronist left in Argentina. During Kirchnerism (which ended up capturing left-wing expressions linked to Chavismo), this position would end up being consolidated with the creation of the coalition. This is mainly due to their intransigence, their constant refusal to cooperate with other political forces and their wide presence among the university intelligentsia, where they have some of their main bastions (although their control of spaces such as student centers has decreased in recent years).

The Left and Workers' Front (FIT) was created in 2011 by three political parties: the Socialist Workers' Party (with greater urban penetration), the Workers' Party (the only force with apparatus in almost all the provinces of the country), and the Socialist Left (the smallest). They later joined the Socialist Workers Movement, adding the name “Unity” to their name (FIT-U).

Despite its ideological intransigence and its break with other spaces of the modern left, the FIT-U has been able to integrate into its discourse (via internationalist theory) globalized logics of the 21st century, such as feminism (where figures like Bregman have played a very vocal personal role, especially in the fight for legal abortion), LGBT rights and environmentalism. Likewise, they exhibit a much stronger management of social networks than that of Peronism, which has led them to have a digital presence well above their percentage of votes.

With that in mind, although the coalition has never obtained more than 3% of the votes in a presidential election and 7% in a legislative one, its continuous parliamentary presence (both in Congress and in provincial legislatures) and its stability as a political force (for example, being the coalition that has been using the same name for the longest time) make it the Trotskyist formation with the largest electoral flow and institutional presence on Earth.

Where does the “Bregman phenomenon” come from?

Before giving us the task of imagining the hypothetical scenario of a victory of Myriam Bregman, it is time to analyze the aspects of reality that lead us to be today... imagining the hypothetical scenario of a victory of Myriam Bregman. That is, explain why she is growing in the polls despite not having substantially changed either the discourse, the symbolism, or the rhetoric that has led her and her party (despite her important militant muscle and her continuous control of a heavy power factor such as urban university nuclei) to never leave a 3-5% vote nationwide.

No, the answer is not as easy as "polls lie", there is something real behind it and its growing media presence, in addition to the functional calculations that other political forces (including the government itself) are making about it, realize that the phenomenon is far from a widespread statistical failure.

Just to start, note that this is a personal phenomenon around Bregman herself and not her political space (i.e., the FIT-U). No other leader of the Left has his intention of voting or public approval. Much of that is due to personal qualities that she fulfills and that overlap the political superficiality that surrounds doing electoral competition in Argentina: she is an urban middle-aged woman, aesthetically proportioned, of decent oratory and with a professional career as a lawyer and institutional as a legislator.

Then there is her personal political record: she has been a member of the same party since the 1990s, exposes the same ideas since she began to do so, and has gone through her institutional passage without any scandals involving her. Finding another leader with those three qualities together in contemporary Argentina is not considered rare, but almost impossible. It is therefore understandable that this earns him respect among people who do not share all his ideas (and that is why his positive image is much higher than his voting intention).

And finally, we end up with the external context that favors it. To the fall in the popularity of the government among young people (including those who will vote for the first time in 2027, of which we already spoke in a previous writing) is added the deep interdict in which the Peronist opposition finds itself, immersed in a series of internals, public setbacks and the previous discredit by the government of Alberto Fernández. All this, although it does not explain it on its own, has contributed to boosting Bregman's rise.

In the same previous paper we discussed the obvious problems faced by the FIT-U, from its lack of a defined management program (attributed by them to their own disinterest in doing electoral politics) to their difficulty in appealing to nationalist discourse in the midst of the "patriotic wave" promoted by the World Cup. The latter has been cloaked by an appeal to Marxist anti-imperialism. Both Bregman and his partner, Nicolás del Caño, have been exploiting more loudly issues such as the Malvinas cause and the foreignization of the land, penetrating a terrain hitherto harshly dominated by Peronism.

Now, let's ask ourselves the most important question. Suppose that, by a political miracle not yet sighted, Myriam Bregman wins the 2027 election. What would be the most likely outcome under current political conditions?

Picturing the Scenario: How Bregman Wins

Although it is an imaginary scenario 100% hypothetical, in order to apply it correctly it is necessary to ground certain illusions and calculations to "make it coherent". That is, to look for the most likely possible scenario in which something that today seems like a utopia can manifest (and therefore be analyzed) as something real.

In principle, an election of Myriam Bregman as president in 2027 represents the worst possible social, economic, political and electoral scenario for both Milei (which until the last day would have the resources of the State and the traditional anti-Peronist political apparatus in its favor for the electoral campaign) and for Peronism (which divided or does not enjoy a brutal militant and economic structure, as well as control of the resources of key governorships and intendencies).

We assume the following: the economic situation worsens considerably, Milei manages to keep traditional anti-Peronism united, Peronism presents itself with multiple candidacies and Bregman manages to articulate a minimum government program, organize a temporary coalition with a sector of the old Kirchnerism, or captures the protest vote of the disaffected and young sectors. With that, she achieves a surprising first or second place that takes her to a second round, which she wins by a narrow margin.

Faced with that, we have three insurmountable factors that would not be modified even in the best possible scenario for Bregman: her zero control of institutional springs (Congress, provinces and distribution of resources), her zero control of structural springs (business, media and hidden poles of power) and the expected reaction of the interested power groups (from a bank panic due to the triumph of a far-left candidacy to political pressures from foreign powers and entities such as the International Monetary Fund).

And then, the only two scenarios arrive where the subsequent future would be borne by Bregman's own political decision: if she tries to do what she promises to do vs. if she tries to do what she can do.

Scenario one: Bregman does everything her promises to do

Scenario number one does not require too much analysis as to its beginning and its expected consequences. Myriam Bregman assumes and, realizing the ideological radicalism he exhibits in her speeches, decides to directly comply with her communist and Trotskyist political program. I anticipate the result: not only does it not turn out well, it does not turn out at all.

The few documents in which the FIT-U has given an account of what it would do if ever a militant of its were to put on the presidential sash point to a series of key decrees: a 24-month ban on all layoffs in the public and private sectors, mandatory indexation of wages, pensions and social allowances to inflation, and reduction of the working day; an immediate cut in payments to the International Monetary Fund; and the nationalization of numerous services and infrastructures.

But before the reader (depending on their ideology) throws himself at explaining to me why they would be good measures or at lamenting in advance how bad they would be, let me save him his valuable time: it will never happen.

We already do a very high illusory stretch by hypothesizing a Bregman triumph in the second round. Therefore, to believe that the FIT-U would reach 80% of the popular vote that would require going from only three deputies to one hundred in a single electoral cycle is already to consider a Borges novel (it does not exist). With this context in mind, the immediate result of the decree would be the automatic articulation of a legislative majority of the establishment (Peronist and anti-Peronist) for the accelerated rejection of the decrees and, at their insistence, in a fleeting political trial for "poor performance of functions". All institutional resistance would be crushed by the same result until the oath of the nearest non-Trotskyist cadre as interim president.

If the FIT-U tried to resist the institutional ejection in the street, it would find that it does not control either the repressive apparatus of the State (whose police have even made strikes against moderate Peronist efforts) or a battery of social mobilization capable of standing up to it (its hardest militancy is composed of middle and upper-middle class university students and the large union groups and their apparatus remain in the hands of Peronism).

Thus, the eventual presidency of the Trotskyist leader would not go beyond a scare of, at most, three weeks, before its chaotic and resounding end, whose consequences would pass more than anything through the panic of the markets and a political disaster of difficult recovery for the country.

Scenario two: Bregman does everything her can do

Scenario number two is, in the author's judgment and ironically, the most likely. With all that can be criticized, it is undeniable that Myriam Bregman has had a long political and parliamentary career. Very despite her fiery statements and her “Moderate Never” pose, it is fair to presume that she knows without a doubt what would happen if she wins and tries to launch “the revolution” by decree (that is, she knows about scenario one).

We are going to consider, therefore, the scenario in which she decides to exercise the presidency aware of the most basic limitations to her actions. That is, to renounce the Trotskyist program to preside over a progressive government with an aggressive tone but without trying to destroy a machinery that her party would find indestructible. Here the result is a little more uncertain, but the odds remain unfailingly against him.

We are talking about a scenario in which Bregman decides to take a more moderate stance in the short or medium term. It would seek to increase the State's margin to implement social policies, negotiate the approval of a series of laws that increase labor rights and social benefits and perhaps even "look for alternatives" to get out of the geopolitical impasse that would imply toughening the rhetoric with the IMF.

The problem is that doing this would require an inevitable betrayal of the basic political bases of her party and, above all, of her more radical partners within the FIT-U (such as the Partido Obrero). Since its genesis, Argentine Trotskyism has been based on fragmentation in the face of dissent, and this would be no exception. Many of the most aggressive militants or "termos" of the coalition (surprised that there is no seizure of power conceived by Marx in the 1870s of a proletariat that neither exists in Argentina nor exists anywhere else in contemporary times) would break with the government in harsh terms in a matter of weeks.

Bregman would have (in her favor) the factor we mentioned in the first section: that the electoral phenomenon revolves around her and not the FIT-U. If her leadership over the left-wing vote is strong enough, internal dissent would not imply that she lost support. On the contrary, her voters would see her as "more viable" than her party and in the first section that would reinforce her.

But even assuming that this did not happen or that it did not mean greater loss for the hypothetical Trotskyist government, Bregman would assume a total institutional weakness in which any moderating spirit would go through agreeing with sectors of Peronism and Kirchnerism, which would perhaps exhibit a proactive attitude in the short term, but would not hesitate to get the most out of a government that could not afford to take a false step (the threat of dismissal from scenario one would remain equally valid). The expected flight of the militant apparatus would only weaken it more in the face of this negotiation, forcing very hard concessions and the seizure of the State by dark power groups.

Then comes the need to fill positions in the State lacking the number of own cadres necessary for this. In this effort, the most likely result would be the incorporation of elements of traditional politics, mostly Kirchnerism or Peronism, in the same sense that La Libertad Avanza did with Macrism, but with a much more marked scale of party disadvantage for the government. The rest of the gaps would be filled, in the same way as with Milei, with figures without administrative experience emerged from murky sectors of university or street militancy, with results similar to those seen in libertarian management (perhaps only slightly more shaped by ideologization).

Between that and the total legislative dependence of Peronism, the consequences would be an extremely weak coalition government, similar in tone to that of Alberto Fernández or perhaps, in its best facet and assuming a relatively efficient administration by Bregman, that of Gabriel Boric in Chile. The scope that management would have to execute its policies would be extremely narrow, and would most likely force to failure many of its most ambitious social proposals.

To this we add the dangerous economic, financial and foreign context. Only Bregman's electoral victory would precipitate an automatic bank run and a series of financial movements in the face of the expected panic of the markets due to the disruptive rise of an openly communist and anti-capitalist force. Almost the entire region will remain governed by right-wing forces for the next few years and in the United States Trumpism will remain in power at least until the beginning of 2029.

Without being able to fulfill promises in the short and medium term, without being able to approve policies without the immediate veto of hesitant or closed sectors of power, and without being able to reach an understanding with decidedly hostile international sectors, Bregman's presidency would most likely see its political capital liquefied in record time, and its consequences could be either an agonizing electoral collapse (ending the mandate gasping in the hands of a triumph of the right or of some Peronist opponent) or, at its worst, a social explosion similar to that of 2001.

What the phenomenon hides

Imagining Bregman (or any other leader coming out of the left) winning a presidential election in Argentina is an interesting exercise, but not a prognosis. There are many factors against it, many more than Milei faced. However, perhaps the most relevant thing is not the idea of Bregman herself or the Left Front itself growing as political options, but something much more disturbing and interesting: the political orphanhood of the Argentine opposition.

From Peronism we are already seeing the same muted reactions that, in the opinion of the writer, look very similar to the rhetoric of Together for Change talking about Milei in 2022: that it is unfeasible, that it is impossible, that it has no apparatus, that it is very extreme. Many analysts, including myself, made the mistake of believing that such a categorical statement had value in 2023 and Javier Milei showed that it was possible to defeat infinitely superior machinery and resources.

On the side of Bregman herself and the FIT-U, having agreed to appear with the rest of the opposition is already a step forward towards an "electoral viability". On the side of Peronism, having allowed a Trotskyist leader to run them off the scene may remain (in the long term) as an isolated incident, but a quick reading exposes the deep political interdict that the movement founded by Juan Domingo Perón more than eighty years ago is going through. He was already seen in the mid-term legislatures, and is routinely seen in the internal by the control of militant, union and electoral springs.

In short, "media-polls" moments like the one Myriam Bregman is having seem (and can be) anecdotal, almost delusional, but they are still interesting to study, especially in a country with a large portion of its electorate that will arrive in 2027 feeling that everyone has failed it and that it owes nothing to anyone.