Argentina's Milei predicts 2025 election shakeup at party launch

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine President Javier Milei said on Saturday he intends to shake up the country's midterm legislative elections next year, during a rally for the national launch of his political party, as the country battles its worst economic crisis in decades.

Winning the 2025 elections would give Milei's libertarian La Libertad Avanza (Liberty Advances) party power in Congress, where it currently holds a minority in both chambers, hampering its ability to approve laws it considers key to its governance.

"We have launched the national party," Milei said. "From now on we will only have good news. In 2025 we will make a big rumble in the elections."

The president made a rock star's entrance at the rally in Lezama Park in downtown Buenos Aires, squeezing through crowds of thousands of supporters and singing a rock song on stage.

The political newcomer who assumed office in December lashed out at the political establishment, which he called a "caste," and at journalists who he branded as "corrupt" and "pieces of excrement".

Many supporters dressed up as lions, Milei's symbol, and others wielded cardboard chainsaws, which he used during his campaign to illustrate his plans to slash the size of the state.

Since taking office, Milei has cut billions of dollars in spending in a tough austerity push intended to tame the world's highest inflation, but under his administration poverty rates have surged by more than 10 percentage points to nearly 53%.

(Reporting by Lucila Sigal; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by William Mallard)