Javier Milei, a libertarian candidate with radical solutions to Argentina’s economic crisis, won Sunday’s presidential runoff against Economy Minister Sergio Massa.

Massa conceded in Buenos Aires on Sunday before the official results were released, saying he called Milei to congratulate him on his victory.

“Argentines chose another path,” Massa said in a speech to supporters.

Massa, from the ruling Peronist coalition, placed first in October’s first round, a remarkable comeback after losing a primary election two months previously. But the dire state of Argentina’s economy, plagued by 143% inflation and a looming recession, posed a challenge too far to his presidential bid.

Milei has promised to fix Argentina’s perennial economic problems by making drastic budget cuts, replacing the battered peso with the US dollar and shutting down the central bank.

Javier Milei shook Argentina’s political chessboard by emerging from relative obscurity. Before entering politics in 2021, he taught economics and authored several books, including “The Path of the Libertarian” and, his latest, “The End of Inflation”.

He entered politics with an agenda against ‘the caste’, a term used for leaders from both the ruling Peronist movement and its opposition, Juntos por el Cambio. For the past two decades, these factions have dominated Argentina’s politics. Their roots go back to the rise of Juan and Eva Perón, who founded the Peronism movement.

“The worst garbage that exists on this earth”, is how Milei, a 52-year-old self-proclaimed libertarian and far-right populist, describes Argentina’s central bank.

Milei, a former small-time rock musician and athlete, is also of the opinion that the trade of human organs and sale of arms should be legalised as ‘it’s just another market’.

(With Inputs From Ashutosh Patki.)