Milei Storms Spain's Election Campaign: Calls Sánchez a 'Dictator' and Praises Conquest

Argentine President Javier Milei branded Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez an "unpresentable dictator" at a Madrid economic breakfast on Wednesday, calling on Spanish voters to oust the left just 39 days before the country's November 29 general election.

The intervention — Milei's seventh trip to Spain since taking office in December 2023 and his third in 2026 alone — arrives at a moment of maximum electoral tension. Political analysts in Madrid warn it may deliver Sánchez precisely the grassroots mobilization tool his campaign has been searching for.

The Forum Speech That Rattled Madrid

Milei's remarks landed inside the Casino de Madrid on Calle Alcalá, the historic venue that regularly hosts the Nueva Economía Fórum — one of Spain's most prominent political and business breakfast series. He opened his address by invoking Argentina's long history of migration to Spain before turning to a head-on assault against the sitting Spanish government.

"Spain has welcomed hundreds of thousands of Argentines who fled misery and lack of future," Milei told the audience, immediately pivoting to frame that same misery as socialism's product. He warned that Sánchez was steering Spanish citizens toward an identical outcome and closed with an unambiguous electoral call: "kick the Socialists out."

When asked during the event why he had never arranged a meeting with Sánchez across any of his seven Madrid visits, Milei was blunt: "I am not going to see a criminal thief" was how MercoPress and Al Arabiya reported his response. He added that he had "no problem" identifying where freedom's enemies are and confronting them directly.

A Defense of Colonization — and a Deliberate Cultural Provocation

Among the morning's most historically charged moments, according to a report by AFP, was Milei's open celebration of the Spanish conquest of the Americas — the same legacy for which several Latin American governments have demanded formal apologies from Madrid. Milei described himself as an admirer of what he called the "great civilizing feat" of the discovery of America, and said Spain deserved credit for having brought Western civilization to the continent.

The framing is deliberate. Milei has built his international profile around what he calls a "war for Western civilization," and praising the conquest on Spanish soil positions him as the ideological polar opposite of Latin American governments — including Mexico's and Colombia's — that have publicly refused to celebrate Spain's colonial legacy and have called for formal apologies over its abuses.

Linking Colonial History to Today's Migration Debate

Milei connected that historical defense directly to Spain's contemporary migration crisis, labeling the situation in Ceuta emblematic of what he sees as the left's failures. He described the mass irregular crossing into Spain's North African enclave as an "invasion" aimed at undermining Western culture.

The reference pointed to a crisis that unfolded overnight on July 30–31, when approximately 60,000 migrants from Morocco crossed into Ceuta in roughly 24 hours — a figure that represented about 70 percent of the enclave's entire population. Earlier in the year, Milei had accused Sánchez of deliberately enabling irregular migration for electoral advantage, a claim he advanced without evidence. Abascal's own campaign has similarly accused the government of using a recent nationality law to expand its voter base.

A Calculated Alliance — or a Campaign Gift for Sánchez?

Not one of Milei's seven visits to Spain has included a meeting with the Sánchez government. His circuit has revolved consistently around three figures: Vox leader Santiago Abascal, Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and Austrian-school economists central to his own intellectual formation.

Wednesday followed that same circuit. After the forum, Milei met privately with Isabel Díaz Ayuso and attended a session at Fundación Disenso — Vox's political foundation and the body behind the Foro Madrid, a far-right Latin American network Milei has backed since before his presidency. Abascal, who was not present at any of Milei's Madrid stops, was simultaneously running a campaign tour through northern Spain, with events in A Coruña and Avilés on Wednesday.

Sánchez Fights Back — on Milei's Own Terms

The Spanish prime minister did not engage Milei directly from the podium, but his response came fast and pointed. Hours after the forum, Sánchez posted a video on X in which he declared "I am a leftie" — defiantly reclaiming the "zurdo" insult Milei routinely wields against the left as a badge of pride. The Socialist Party went further, hanging a banner from its headquarters reading: "Hello Milei, we lefties welcome you to Spain, the fastest-growing country in Europe." The move fits a strategy Sánchez has pursued since calling snap elections on October 5, after parliament voted down two emergency housing decrees — with the Catalan separatist party Junts per Catalunya casting the decisive votes against the measures.

The November 29 Stakes

Spain's upcoming vote is among the most competitive in recent memory. Recent polling averages project the Partido Popular at roughly 140 seats and the PSOE at around 106, with neither bloc commanding a governing majority on its own. That math makes Vox's projected seat count — which polls now put as high as 61 to 65 — the decisive variable, and Abascal's closeness to Milei the central theme of the left's campaign messaging.

Spanish political consultants have flagged the risk of a backfire. César Calderón of the Red Lines consultancy has described each Milei-Abascal photo opportunity as "a free campaign ad" for the other side. Communications scholar Gabriela Ortega Jarrín has argued the images will serve as "an alarm signal" that mobilizes centrist and progressive voters who might otherwise stay home.

For Milei, the calculus points the other direction. An Abascal-backed government in Madrid would be among the most consequential foreign-policy payoffs of his presidency — and Wednesday's breakfast speech made clear he is prepared to spend political capital to help bring it about.

© {{Year}} Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.