Argentine President Javier Milei blamed “political panic” for rattling markets Friday in the run-up to crucial midterm elections, sending the peso into a tailspin and hurting the country’s sovereign risk.

The Central Bank intervened this week to shore up the peso, which closed at 1,515 pesos to the dollar on Friday, breaking through the upper limit of the trading band set by the government.

In an address to the stock exchange of the central city of Cordoba, the right-wing Milei blamed the left-wing opposition for creating “spiraling political panic in the market and generating enormous disorganization in terms of sovereign risk.”

Defending his program of harsh austerity, the libertarian leader accused the opposition of “throwing a spanner in the works” to hurt him politically.

The peso

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