Buenos Aires Herald 
A party in Santa Cruz province spelled out its support for libertarian presidential candidate Javier Milei by changing its name to Movimiento Integrador Liberal e Independiente — MILEI. The ballot with the acronym emblazoned on it was presented in June but made headlines on Thursday when the honored politician made his opinion known on Twitter.
The ballot in question belonged to a faction of the Unidos por Santa Cruz party, which used to be allied at the national level with the opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio (JxC). In this case, MILEI was created for Rubén Adrián Ferrara and Miguel Podestá to run as governor and vice governor respectively — they have shown support for Milei’s party, La Libertad Avanza before but are not official allies.
“Surely if those cheaters have a bad performance in the elections, this schemer Adriancito [referring to Ferrara] (he’s not the only one, but he’s the worst one) will talk about a bad electoral performance because of my name being on the ballot,” Milei said on Twitter.
La Libertad Avanza does not recognize gubernatorial candidates in the provinces with the exception of La Rioja, Tucumán and Buenos Aires province. This was made explicit in a communiqué last month. Regardless, candidates supportive of the party have run for elections using Milei’s name or likeness, and named their parties with the key words libertad or libre for an approximation.
Ferrara is just one of six gubernatorial candidates within the Por Santa Cruz coalition. There are five coalitions competing, with a total of 13 candidates hoping to rule the province.
In Santa Cruz, there are no primary elections, but multiple candidates from each coalition can run for the same office. The gubernatorial race is scheduled to happen at the same time as the national primaries, on August 13.
La Libertad Avanza’s official candidates lost in both La Rioja and Tucumán while Buenos Aires has gone to the polls yet.
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