First the bad news.

In mid-term elections in Argentina, the party of president Javier Milei, a Trump fanboy, won a decisive victory. Trump had blatantly interfered in that election by promising that country a $40 billion bailout package if Milei’s party won and abandoning it if they lost. Typical thuggish threats from him. Unfortunately there are suggestions that this may well have swayed the outcome so Trump will try and repeat it elsewhere.

Milei’s libertarian party, La Libertad Avanza (Liberty Advances), captured nearly 41% of the vote – considerably higher than expected after a miserable spell of corruption scandals and growing economic crisis – compared with his Peronist rivals’ 32%. Argentina’s bonds, stocks and currency, the peso, surged on Monday as Milei celebrated what he called a vindication of his two-year-old “shock therapy” crusade.
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The US president had vowed to jettison his South American ally if, as widely predicted, the radical libertarian fared badly in Sunday’s make-or-break legislative vote. “If he doesn’t win, we’re gone,” Trump declared when Argentina’s shaggy-haired president visited him in Washington earlier this month to plead for economic help.

Milei’s political woes have been building in recent months, with growing public frustration over Argentina’s sluggish economy translating into market jitters and a pasting in Buenos Aires’ provincial election in September. Trump stepped in after that humiliating result, offering a $20bn (£15bn) currency swap deal and a further $20bn in support for an economy he claimed was “dying” – although the US president indicated such “generosity” would evaporate if Milei failed to win big on Sunday.

It is really quite astonishing how Trump can find such sums of money to dispose of seemingly at will.

Meanwhile in the UK, in a by-election held in Wales, the candidate of the Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru won with 47% of the vote, following the sudden death of th incumbent Labour MP. That party is described as being center-left in Welsh politics. I will not even begin to claim to know the many factors in Welsh politics that led to this result. But one thing seems clear and that is that this humiliating third place finish for the the Labour party with just 11% of the vote, after having held that seat for over a 100 years, can only be viewed as reflecting the utterly inept leadership of prime minister Keir Starmer. (The Conservatives got 2% and the Greens and Liberal Democrats got 1.5% each which makes me wonder if they just ran token campaigns.)

Asked whether he would resign if he could not turn around Labour’s fortunes by the Senedd [the name of the devolved parliament of Wales-MS] elections in May, Sir Keir said: “In relation to the by-election, look, I’m deeply disappointed in the results. I’m not going to suggest otherwise.

“I spoke to the first minister this morning, and clearly we need to reflect and regroup and double down on delivery in Wales, and we clearly need to do much more.”

A redeeming feature is that the surging Reform party led by the odious Nigel Farage threw everything into this election hoping to win the seat but came in second with 36% of the vote, which is still too large for comfort. If Labour continues to flounder under Starmer, Reform will gain ground.

The main good news is that a leftist candidate won the Irish presidency by a landslide, reversing a recent slide towards right-wing politics in that country.

[Catherine] Connolly needed a lot of things to fall into place, and one by one, they all did. The ferocity with which she stood up for Palestinian dignity drew her heaps of criticism throughout the campaign from the country’s media and political call, but clearly helped her with the public, who also approved of her social democratic politics. Her main opponent has conceded, and Connolly has won in a landslide. The Irish president is a fairly ceremonial position, though it does have some powers.

Independent socialist Catherine Connolly swept to a landslide victory Saturday to become Ireland’s next president, dealing a record-breaking rebuke to the two center-ground parties of government.

Jubilant supporters of the 68-year-old Connolly, a lawmaker from the western city of Galway, embraced and kissed her as final results from Friday’s election were announced at the Dublin Castle count center.

In her victory speech, Connolly struck an immediate note of unity. She stood side by side with Ireland’s government leaders — and pledged to challenge the far right and its anti-immigrant agenda.
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Connolly won a record 63.4 percent of valid votes. Heather Humphreys of the government coalition party Fine Gael finished a distant second with 29.5 percent.
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Connolly won, in no small part, thanks to backing from Ireland’s five left-wing parties, most crucially Sinn Féin. All stood aside to give her a clean run on an anti-government platform, a political first for the normally fractious left.
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While the left celebrated from Dublin Castle to Galway, Ireland’s disgruntled conservatives left their own mark on the election — by vandalizing their ballots in unprecedented numbers.

The above article omitted a central part of Connolly’s message and that was her strong condemnation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza which a Guardian article only mentioned in passing.

Anger over a housing crisis and the cost of living, campaign blunders by Fine Gael and its ruling partner Fianna Fáil, rare unity among leftwing parties and deft use of social media combined to make Connolly a symbol of change.
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The prospect of Connolly succeeding President Michael D Higgins and serving a seven-year term at Áras an Uachtaráin, the presidential residence, thrills supporters. She wishes to ringfence Irish neutrality from what she calls western “militarism” and has accused the UK and US of enabling genocide in Gaza.

Ryan Grim of the excellent Drop Site News had been in Ireland during the summer and took part in a Q/A with Connolly that you can watch here. She is clearly passionate about condemning the genocide and is very powerful.

Grim says in his newsletter (that I subscribe to):

As it happens, this summer, I was in Ireland and had the opportunity to interview a lawmaker who had just launched a longshot bid for the presidency, Catherine Connolly. Along with my Drop Site colleague Abubaker Abed — who had only left Gaza for the first time weeks earlier — and The Ditch’s Paulie Doyle, we gathered in a packed and sweltering pub in Dublin (not much air conditioning over there!) for a long conversation mostly focused on Ireland’s conflicted relationship to Israel and Palestine; much of the country’s population is supportive of the Palestinians and their struggle for independence; the government gives lip service to the question, while mostly going along with broader European policy.

Connolly needed a lot of things to fall into place, and one by one, they all did. The ferocity with which she stood up for Palestinian dignity drew her heaps of criticism throughout the campaign from the country’s media and political call, but clearly helped her with the public, who also approved of her social democratic politics.

Watch her responding to questions about Gaza.

Catherine Connolly, who has just won the Irish presidency in a landslide: "History did not begin on October 7. It's important to point out the history of the many atrocities committed by the Israeli regime. Western countries should have no say about Hamas. They should stop the… pic.twitter.com/TOlnNIlThr

— ☀️👀 (@zei_squirrel) October 25, 2025

The Irish presidency lacks executive power and is formally largely ceremonial but since 1990 presidents such as Mary Robinson, Mary McAleese, and outgoing president Michael D. Higgins have used their platform to highlight important issues.