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Argentina's President Javier Milei celebrates after the La Libertad Avanza party won the midterm election, which is seen as crucial for Milei's administration after U.S. President Donald Trump warned that future support for Argentina would depend on Milei's party performing well in the vote, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 26, 2025.
What We’re Watching: Milei’s smashing election night, Brazil’s Lula eyes US trade deal, Sudan’s rebel forces seize stricken Darfur town
Argentina’s Milei bounces back in midterms
Argentine President Javier Milei’s La Libertad Avanza party surged in yesterday’s parliamentary elections, getting more than 40% of the vote – against just 32% for the opposition Peronists – winning enough seats to ensure the opposition can’t override the president’s veto. Milei was in a tough spot ahead of the vote, facing a stagnating economy, a corruption scandal involving his sister, and dwindling central bank reserves (a result of his policy of propping up the peso). But the results suggest Argentine voters appreciate the “anarcho-capitalist” outsider’s efforts to tame inflation via economic “shock therapy.” Argentine bonds surged following the results, which gives Milei a mandate to continue with his approach while also opening the way for a $20 billion bailout from the United States.
Can Trump and Lula make a deal?
After meeting with Trump at the ASEAN summit in Malaysia yesterday, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said a new US-Brazil trade deal is “guaranteed.” In June, US President Donald Trump slapped 50% tariffs on Brazil, blasting the country’s controversial content moderation policies, demanding an end to the prosecution of former President Jair Bolsonaro on coup charges, and accusing the country of “unfair” trade practices (note: the US actually runs a surplus with Brazil). Is a deal possible? Lula won’t change tack on content moderation, nor is he going to “free” Bolsonaro. What else might Washington seek from Brazil instead? Trump seems less certain of a deal than Lula, saying only “we’ll see.”
Sudan’s Darfur region falls to the Rapid Support Forces
In a fresh turn for Sudan’s brutal civil war, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have pushed their rivals in the Sudanese Army out of El Fasher, a key city in the Darfur region. The move gives the RSF broader control over Western Sudan. El Fasher has been under siege since April, with civilians trapped inside enduring extreme famine and violence. The RSF, which has been accused of genocide by the US, was driven out of eastern and central Sudan, as well as the capital, Khartoum, earlier this year.Election season is here
As we race toward the end of 2025, voters in over a dozen countries will head to the polls for elections that have major implications for their populations and political movements globally.
Today, GZERO is highlighting three of them that stand out to us – in the United States, Argentina, and Côte d’Ivoire. The issues each of those electorates face are different, but the results could provide insight into the future of larger political trends.
Democrats seek a glimmer of hope
The United States doesn’t have a nationwide election this fall, but it has plenty of local ones to pique the interest of political nerds. These include the mayoral election in New York City, gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, and state Supreme Court races in the purple state of Pennsylvania – Election Day for all them is Nov. 4.
“Democrats probably should win all those races for this election to be to feel like a success for them,” University of Virginia politics expert Kyle Kondik told GZERO.
Though these races are local, they have national implications, as the Democratic Party desperately seeks to build some momentum after a tough year. The party is struggling for leadership, its messaging has been muddled, and it hasn’t been able to even temper – let alone stop – President Donald Trump’s policy agenda.
One Democrat who has brought some life to the party this year is Zohran Mamdani, the nominee for New York City mayor. A democratic socialist, Mamdani rode the waves of a successful social-media campaign to defeat former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo in the primary, and is now all-but-certain to become the mayor. This doesn’t mean his message, though, will work elsewhere in the country.
“There may be something appealing about Mamdani’s campaigning style – the short videos, that sort of thing.” said Kondik. “But I don’t think staking out left-wing positions is going to suddenly be seen as a winning strategy.”
Can Milei clean up the midterm mess?
Argentine President Javier Milei’s libertarian movement is on the line as the South American country heads to the polls on Sunday in legislative elections.
The economist-turned-politician, replete with his mutton chops and sometimes a chainsaw, has become a figurehead for a global movement to slash the size of government via “shock therapy.” However, he’s faced some roadblocks recently: unemployment is increasing, the economy is slowing, and a corruption scandal sent government bonds tumbling over the summer. It didn’t help matters that his foreign minister resigned on Wednesday. This has all overshadowed the significant progress that Milei has made in cutting the country’s notoriously high inflation rate.
Though Milei isn’t personally on the ballot this year, an ally from afar has tried to throw his party a lifeline: US President Donald Trump pledged to hand Argentina a $20-billion bailout. The money comes with conditions, though. “If he doesn’t win, we’re gone,” Trump said. “If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina.”
So what’s Milei’s target? Milei’s Libertad Avanza party is still nascent – it was only formed in 2021 – so it has only scant representation in the National Congress. What’s more, only a third of senators are up for reelection, and half the Chamber of Deputies. The goal for Milei, then, is simply to nab a third of all seats in the lower chamber, which will be enough to give him veto power.
Will it happen? “The expectation a couple of months ago was the government was expecting to have a very strong performance in the election and win at least a third of the seats.” Juan Cruz Díaz, the managing director of Buenos Aires-based advisory firm Cefeidas Group, told GZERO. “Now the situation is more challenging.”
Another old leader set to retain power on world’s youngest continent
Côte d’Ivoire on Africa’s West Coast is known for many things: it is the world’s largest cocoa producer, it has large gold reserves – particularly important with gold prices sky high – and it has had its share of world-class soccer players, most notably Didier Drogba.
One thing that the country isn’t known for, at least recently, is democracy. The country hasn’t had a peaceful transition of power in decades: two of the last three presidents were forcibly deposed, and the other was assassinated two years after leaving office. Meanwhile the incumbent leader Alassane Ouattara, who is 83 and seeking a fourth term, has clamped down on opposition leaders and restricted mass gatherings on the grounds that it could cause yet another coup.
What’s more, the opposition is fragmented, according to Eurasia Group’s West Africa analyst Jeanne Ramier.
“Nobody has successfully managed to mobilize against the fourth term,” said Ramier. “Whereas, on the contrary, many people are actually advocating for Ouattara because he’s got a good record, because they want stability and peace.”
Ouattara’s impending victory also highlights a trend across Africa: There are several elderly leaders across the continent, and many are set to stay in charge. It’s a remarkable trend on what is the youngest continent in the world – by some distance – and one that is fueling concerns about the state of democracy across it.
US President Donald Trump and Argentine President Javier Milei react at the White House in Washington, D.C., USA, on October 14, 2025.
What We’re Watching: Trump makes conditional pledge to Argentina’s Milei, Syria’s new leader meets old foe, Cameroon’s opposition leader declares victory
Trump pledges money to Argentina – if Milei’s party wins midterm
US President Donald Trump appeared to hand Argentine President Javier Milei a financial lifeline ahead of the South American nation’s midterm election later this month, pledging to grant the long-suffering economy a $20-billion bailout. But, the US leader added, “If he loses, we are not going to be generous with Argentina.” Trump denied that he was seeking to boost Milei ahead of the midterms, but Democrats criticized him for helping out a foreign administration while the US federal government is shut down. It’s also unclear what would constitute enough of a “win” for Milei in the eyes of Trump – the Argentine leader is hoping to win a third of Chamber of Deputies seats so that he can gain veto power.
Syria and Russia meeting turn enemies into allies again
Syria’s new President Ahmed al-Sharaa visited Russia on Wednesday, meeting with one of the biggest backers of the Assad regime he overthrew. Both Syria and Russia have reasons to bury that hatchet. Al-Sharaa is seeking guarantees that Russia won’t rearm remnants of Assad’s forces, and could instead help rebuild Syria’s army. He also implored Moscow to hand over Assad to face trial in Syria. Meanwhile, Russia has lost or been restricted from accessing its military bases and naval ports in Syria, which provide Russia its only stopover points in the eastern Mediterranean for planes and ships traveling to Africa. Following the meeting, al-Sharaa said that Syria would honor all past deals struck between the two countries, suggesting that Russia’s military bases may be open for business again soon.
Cameroon’s opposition leader declares victory over 43-year incumbent
One might not expect that a battle between a 92-year-old and a 79-year-old — who happens to be his former friend — would necessarily have such major consequences for a country, but that’s exactly the case for Cameroon. Opposition leader Issa Tchiroma Bakary, 79, claimed victory yesterday over President Paul Biya, 92, following Sunday’s presidential election, and called on the long-time leader to “honour the truth of the ballot box.” Biya’s party denied Tchiroma’s claims, though the long-time leader hasn’t necessarily been the most reliable practitioner of democracy. The official results for Sunday’s poll have yet to be announced – the deadline for their certification is Oct. 26.
Argentine President Javier Milei speaks to the media while standing on a vehicle with lawmaker Jose Luis Espert during a La Libertad Avanza rally ahead of legislative elections on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on August 27, 2025.
Dual crises throw wrench in Milei’s election plans
The campaign for Argentina’s legislative election officially launched this week, but it couldn’t have gone worse for President Javier Milei. A corruption scandal – one of the very things that he railed against during his successful campaign two years ago – burst into the news after a leaked recording appeared to implicate his sister.
The tapes suggest that Karina Milei, who is also a member of the administration, was involved in a kickback scheme at the National Disability Agency (ANDIS). Nothing has been proven, but the federal authorities stepped up their investigation in response to the leaked audio.
That’s not all for Milei: alongside the corruption scandal are a host of economic issues that have undermined his policy of fiscal “shock therapy.” Output has been stagnant this year, the peso is massively overvalued – this decreases competitiveness of Argentine exports – and public sector pay is down in real terms. Argentina’s central bank also increased its reserve requirements this week, which could further hit the economy. The concern for Milei is that these issues will overwhelm the success he’s had in bringing down inflation and balancing the budget.
“It won’t be a corruption scandal that does him in, it will probably be the economic problems,” said Eugenia Mitchelstein, a social sciences professor at the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires. “The corruption scandal doesn’t help.”
The Oct. 26 midterm election, where a third of senators and half of the Chamber of Deputies are up for election, is a vital one for the president. The vote will not only be a bellwether for how Argentina feels about his economic approach, but also gives Milei’s La Libertad Avanza (LLA) party an opportunity to pick up seats in a Congress that has blocked many of the president’s proposed reforms.
What’s the current state of Argentina’s Congress? Milei only co-founded the libertarian LLA in 2021, so its representation in both chambers of the National Congress is paltry: only six of the 72 senators and 38 of the 257 deputies currently belong to LLA. What’s more, Argentina’s politics is heavily fragmented, meaning there are several different parties represented in the Congress – no single party has a majority. The Unión por la Patria (UP), a center-left Peronist grouping that is Milei’s main foe, has a plurality.
What does Milei want? Milei’s first target is to win a third of the seats so that he can gain veto power. Beyond that, the president hopes to enact tax, labor, and pension reforms that will structurally alter Argentina’s economy. So far he has been able to muscle some changes through the National Congress, such as the big omnibus bill passed in June 2024 to deregulate the economy and hand the president more power. But his party’s threadbare representation limited what he was able to achieve, forcing him to negotiate with his opponents from a weak position. That could change after the October election.
“Even if the government does extremely well, they won’t have their own majority in Congress, so they will still need to negotiate with the more moderate sectors of the opposition,” Juan Cruz Díaz, the managing director of Buenos Aires-based advisory firm Cefeidas Group, told GZERO. “But they will do it from a different standpoint, from a different legitimacy. They will have more leverage.”
Who’s leading the charge against Milei? UP may be the biggest opposition party, but they have a leadership crisis. Over 40% of Argentinians said they didn’t know who the leader of the opposition was, or said there was none, per a Pulso poll from earlier this month. Another 25% said it was former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the left-wing Peronist leader who is currently under house arrest for corruption, and is barred from politics for life.
“[The opposition] is not only fragmented, it is leaderless,” said Marcelo J. Garcia, Americas director at Horizon Engage consultancy. “Milei is the only national leader that controls his political space, his political party. So that really plays to his advantage.”
Why should I care about Argentina? The Latin American nation of over 47 million people is better known for its soccer stars, beautiful Patagonian mountain range, and delicious beef steaks. But Milei is creating his own level of fame. His brash brand of chainsaw politics has become something exemplary for right wingers across the globe, with libertarians proclaiming his premiership as a paragon of success.
This election gives Argentinians the chance to say how they feel about Milei’s leadership, and whether he’s done enough to stabilize the country’s turbulent economy. It could have major ramifications for how Milei governs going forward, according to Mitchelstein.
“If he does well, if he gets, say, 40-42% of the vote, it will confirm his intuition, and it will probably make him more Milei than ever,” Mitchelstein told GZERO. “If he doesn't get that many votes, say, 37-38%, it might actually lead him to rethink his government, and also the way he’s been ruling.”
Argentina's President Javier Milei speaks during the CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) in Balneario Camboriu, Santa Catarina state, Brazil, July 7, 2024.
What We’re Watching: Milei deepens Israeli ties, China scales back on Nvidia, Russia doubles down on Ukraine
Milei seeks to spread Israel sympathies across LatAm
Milei seeks to spread Israel sympathies across LatAmAs several nations become increasingly critical of Israel’s tactics in Gaza in recent weeks, one is going in the other direction: Argentina wants to enhance Latin American ties with the Jewish state, via a $1-million initiative called the Isaac Accords. The program will hand research grants to pro-Israel projects conducted in Latin America. Argentine President Javier Milei aims to further expand his goodwill toward Israel next year by expanding the Isaac Accords to more regional countries.
China pressures tech giants over Nvidia AI chip orders
Beijing is demanding Chinese tech firms, including Alibaba and ByteDance, justify purchases of Nvidia’s H20 AI chips. China would prefer that the firms buy domestically. The move follows a deal allowing Nvidia to resume H20 sales in China by paying 15% of revenues to the US government. Now the Chinese scrutiny is prompting some companies to scale back orders, potentially cutting Nvidia’s China market share to 55% this year from 66% in 2024, amid ongoing US-China tech tensions.
Russia doubles down on Ukraine ahead of Alaska summit
In what seems to be an attempt to maximise its territorial gains ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s upcoming summit with US President Donald Trump in Alaska, the Kremlin launched a fresh push in eastern Ukraine this week. The advance comes as Trump renewed his calls for both Moscow and Kyiv to cede territory for a potential peace deal. But while Putin may be showing resolve on the battlefront, he appears to face economic troubles at home: Russia has reportedly enlisted tens of thousands of North Koreans to fill labor shortages as its traditional workforce is increasingly pulled to the frontline.Deputy head of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev delivers a speech during a session of the educational marathon “Knowledge. First” in Moscow, Russia, on April 29, 2025.
What We’re Watching: US-Russia tensions mushroom, Israeli minister prays by al-Aqsa mosque, Milei vetoes pension boost
US-Russia tensions escalate
Are the 1960s calling? A US president is repositioning nuclear submarines while Russia is carrying out previously scheduled anti-submarine drills – with China’s help – in the Sea of Japan. Donald Trump made the move on Friday after former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, called the threat of US sanctions, “a step towards war.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio played down Medvedev’s words on Sunday, but the tensions remain. US special envoy Steve Witkoff visits Russia this week ahead of the deadline that Trump imposed on Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the Ukraine war or face expanded sanctions.
Israeli minister’s provocative prayers in Jerusalem
In a move that is sure to ignite fury across the Arab world, far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir on Sunday visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, known to Muslims as the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, and prayed there. The move breaks a decades-long arrangement under which Jews can visit the compound, the third-holiest Islamic site that also sits on the same plot as the first and second Jewish temples, but not pray there. Ben-Gvir’s move came after Hamas released videos Friday of emaciated hostages held in Gaza. The move recalls then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to the mount in 2000, a provocation that touched off the Second Intifada.
Argentina’s president vetos pension boost
The chainsaw stops for no one. Argentina’s ultra-libertarian President Javier Milei, who has already slashed billions from the federal budget, vetoed a proposal to increase pensions on Monday. “There is no money,” he said. It’s a risky move. Milei, elected in 2023, faces his first mid-term elections this fall. His cost-cutting has helped to tame Argentina’s notoriously high inflation, but the economy has struggled lately – the peso just posted its worst month since 2023 – and his cuts have generated some social backlash.A view of the Business School campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, on April 15, 2025.
HARD NUMBERS: Trump tries to ban foreign students at Harvard, Pensioners revolt in Argentina, Escaped bird ponders long flight home & more
7,000: The White House has scrapped Harvard University’s authorization to enroll foreign students, putting the school’s roughly 7,000 foreigners at risk of having to transfer elsewhere or go home. The Trump administration accuses Harvard of fostering antisemitism and violence, and of “coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party.” Harvard plans to appeal the move, which could affect a major source of income, as foreigners typically pay full tuition.
331: Dozens of people were injured in a protest by pensioners and activists outside the Argentine Congress on Wednesday. At issue are demands to raise the current pension level of $331 per month. President Javier Milei has opposed pension hikes as part of his “chainsaw” austerity drive.
81: US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) says he has gathered 81 co-sponsors for a bill that would impose a draconian 500% tariff on any countries that buy Russian energy. The biggest of those buyers is, of course, China. Trump reportedly told European leaders on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t ready to end the war, although the White House has disputed that account.
344%: The murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., has shined another light on the burgeoning wave of antisemitism in the United States and beyond. Antisemitic incidents across the US have increased by 344% in the last five years. Australia, Belgium and France have experienced similar surges, too.
27: A top Maoist leader was among 27 rebels killed by security forces in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh on Wednesday, part of a government crackdown against this far-left insurgency. Nambala Keshava Rao was the highest profile rebel killed in decades. New Delhi has said it wants to end the insurgency in Chhattisgarh entirely by March 2026.
9,000: The Great Escape, bird edition: A juvenile East African crowned crane, known for its distinctive crown of golden feathers, broke out of a zoo in Washington state. If the bird is planning to return to its eponymous home, it will have to travel nearly 9,000 miles.
Meet María Corina Machado, the woman who scares Venezuela's dictator
Born and trained as an engineer, Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has become a powerful symbol of resistance. Once a fringe opposition politician who shocked the nation by interrupting Hugo Chavez, she now leads the charge against the dictatorial regime of his successor, Nicolás Maduro. Although she has gone into hiding, she has not kept quiet. Through remote interviews and media outreach, she's rallied support for the opposition and praised right-leaning Latin American leaders like Argentina’s Javier Milei and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. She defended the Trump administration’s recent move to cancel oil and gas licenses that had allowed energy companies to operate in Venezuela.
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