An Argentine MP with a poster “Down with the entire Milei plan”, on April 29, 2024 at Congress, in Buenos Aires (AFP/LUIS ROBAYO)
Argentine deputies began on Monday a new examination of the deregulatory reforms project of ultraliberal President Javier Milei, a project considerably watered down since the setback suffered in Parliament in February by a pharaonic initial version.
A little more than 230 articles, instead of the 664 at the start of the so-called “omnibus” law, are submitted to the Lower House, with caveats on the privatizations of public companies – eleven planned instead of around forty – or the flexibilisation of labor law, in a lighter version.
The government is optimistic but the vote is not guaranteed, in a hemicycle where Milei’s libertarian party is only the third group (38 deputies), and despite agreements in committee with right-wing blocs. And it would only constitute a first step before the Senate, where the arithmetic is even more delicate for the presidential party.
A demonstration planned for Monday near Parliament, called by social movements and radical left organizations, also posed a risk of tensions and clashes, as in February, around the debate. Which could stretch well into Tuesday night.
To date, Milei’s reforms, president since December, have suffered two setbacks in Parliament: in February when deputies forced the referral to committees of the omnibus law. Then in March, when the Senate rejected another part, the “Decree of Necessity and Emergency”, a mega-decree published at the start of his presidency and to this day partially in force.
But the promised “shock therapy” of austerity is well and truly in place, between brutal devaluation of the peso (+50%), liberation of prices and rents, end of transport and energy subsidies, freeze public worksites, etc. Drying up purchasing power, and increasing economic activity.
“Our plan is working,” insists the president, who cites the continued deceleration of inflation since his arrival (from 25% monthly to around 10%), and a budget surplus in the first quarter, a first since 2008.
Let parliamentarians “throw away the law (omnibus), let them throw away everything, we will still succeed despite politics”, launched Milei a few days ago, as a challenge and to de-dramatize in advance a possible new setback legislative.
In her first public intervention since the defeat of her Peronist camp (center-left) in the presidential election, ex-president (2007-2015) Cristina Kirchner this weekend accused Milei of inflicting a “useless sacrifice” on the Argentines in the name of budget balance. “What’s the point if people starve, lose their jobs and can’t make it at the end of the month?” she asked.
© 2024 AFP
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