Milei manages to overcome the first parliamentary obstacle for its scrapping megalaw after withdrawing almost half of the articles

Javier Milei achieved his first parliamentary victory in Argentina this Friday.

After three days of intense debate and amid tense protests in the streets, the Chamber of Deputies of Argentina voted in favor of the project to scrap the State presented by the far-right Government.

The initiative had 144 positive votes and 109 negative votes.

It is a bittersweet triumph for the Argentine president.

Milei, in a minority in Congress, had to cut the 664 articles of the original project by almost half to obtain the necessary support, but it remains to be seen if he will have to give in even more.

The most controversial points – such as the delegation of legislative powers and the privatization of public companies – will be submitted to a second one-by-one vote next Tuesday in the Lower House.

Once the marathon session is over, one of the longest in the history of Argentine democracy, the megalaw proposal will go to the Senate, which will have the final say.

“It is time for the representatives of the people to decide if they are on the side of the freedom of Argentines or on the side of the privileges of the caste and the corporate republic,” Milei said through a statement on social networks when the debate entered in its final stretch.

La Libertad Avanza, the party led by Milei, has only 38 of Argentina's 257 deputies, but maintains a government alliance with the PRO of former president Mauricio Macri, which has 37 deputies.

The other affirmative votes came from the seats of the center-right Radical Civic Union (UCR), some legislators from regional forces and Peronists who abandoned the Union for the Homeland (UxP) coalition, which still retains 99 deputies and is the main force. opposition.

After the general approval of the project of the “Law of bases and starting points for the freedom of Argentines” – known as an

omnibus law

due to the multitude of issues it covers –, official negotiators are now working against the clock to also guarantee the support of the most conflictive points.

Days ago, the Government renounced the tax reforms proposed by the megalaw, such as tax increases on exports and workers with higher salaries—which clashed with its campaign promise to lower taxes—and the modification of the current pension updating system that It meant a new cut in the purchasing power of retirees.

The package of fiscal measures will be discussed separately with the different provincial governors.

Milei also had to give up his claim to obtain emergency legislative powers for his entire presidential term.

In the original wording of the text, it was contemplated that Congress would grant these powers for two years, extendable for another two years.

In the approved draft, the period is one year extendable to another, but it still has to be submitted to a private vote given the misgivings of several deputies about granting extraordinary powers to a president who has not hesitated to attack the State again and again. and wants to reduce it to its minimum expression.

Another of the articles on which there are more discrepancies for the vote in particular will be that of privatizations.

Milei wants to sell all state companies, but this is an unpopular opinion: surveys show that more than 60% of the population is opposed and believes there should be exceptions.

The initial list has been reduced from 41 to 27 companies and has left out some of the best known, such as the oil company YPF.

Other companies may only be partially privatized.

There is also no consensus on the Government's powers to take on foreign debt or on the tightening of the security policy requested by Minister Patricia Bullrich.

Milei wants to have his hands free and get rid of the obligation to go through Congress to obtain loans like the one that Macri received in 2018 from the International Monetary Fund, 44,000 million dollars that Argentina has not yet finished returning.

The debate takes place in extraordinary sessions called by the Government during the southern summer holidays.

The Executive intended to give express treatment to the project and finish it in two weeks, but had to extend the deadline due to the rejection it encountered.

The parliamentary discussion began on Wednesday but was interrupted that midnight to be resumed twelve hours later.

The next day the dynamic was repeated.

With a Congress armored by riot forces, the parliamentary marathon resumed this Friday at ten in the morning while the protests were repeated outside doors.

In total there are now more than 30 hours of debate.

Police repression

The two previous nights there were moments of tension before the doors of Parliament.

On Wednesday, the Federal Police, the Gendarmerie and the Prefecture were deployed after five in the afternoon when a group of protesters, summoned by political parties and left-wing organizations, tried to block some of the streets surrounding Congress.

That night, the agents repressed the people who were demonstrating with beatings and tear gas.

There were a few thousand of them and they wanted to make their rejection of the bill promoted by the ruling party heard.

“This deployment is unnecessary,” criticized a protester in front of the large number of agents.

Tension grew the next day, Thursday, when security forces also repressed with rubber bullets.

More than 20 press workers were hit by the projectiles and at least eight protesters were also detained.

Seven agents were also injured, according to the Government.

In the premises, left-wing and Peronist deputies left their benches to go down to the street.

The Ombudsman's Office of the City of Buenos Aires criticized "the institutional violence displayed" and denounced to the Prosecutor's Office the "repressive operation" that "transgressed the Public Security Law", according to which the protection of the rights of those who “they participate” in demonstrations.

The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, on the other hand, assessed that the incidents had not been “serious” and asked journalists to wear badges during coverage “because if not, we don't know.”

The presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni, congratulated the agents for “the titanic task.”

“We are doing what is appropriate.

“We are not willing for a small group of violent people to stop a debate,” he said at the Government press conference.

This Friday the protesters returned to the square.

“Thousands of us went out everywhere to shout enough,” read a banner displayed in front of Congress.

On a day when the maximum temperature exceeds 38 degrees in Buenos Aires, there are still hundreds of Protestants gathered.

This Friday, actions called by other union, political and cultural groups will be added to the first concentrations called by political parties and left-wing organizations.

There will be artists playing music and a call has been launched “to occupy all the streets” with cars, motorcycles, bicycles “or any type of vehicle.”

“We do not want to anger Minister Patricia Bullrich.

For this reason, we get creative,” says the invitation, which directly challenges the head of the Security portfolio and her protocol.

The people gathered in Congress Square learned the result of the vote a few minutes late.

An artist who was preparing to sing a milonga on stage as a protest interrupted the music, bewildered.

When she heard the news she communicated it to those present who loudly demanded a “general strike.”

“This is a general vote.

Next week will continue in particular.

It is important that we know that the fight continues,” one of those present intervened.

The artist, Julieta Laso, asked not to abandon the streets and returned to a song by the Redonditos de Ricota,

Blues de Artillery

: “Let's not abandon the streets, let's stay here.”

Since taking office on December 10, Milei has already faced a general strike and numerous protests, but everything suggests that social conflict will increase starting in March, when the school year starts and the effects begin to be felt more strongly. of the recession that the country is suffering.

In mid-2023, four out of every ten inhabitants of Argentina were poor—and almost six out of every ten children—and the next official data will be worse.

Inflation is also increasing, even though Argentina has unseated Venezuela from the top of the world podium.

Prices increased by 211.4% in 2024 and the pace will accelerate even further in the coming months due to the withdrawal of energy and transportation subsidies and deregulation in sectors such as food, fuel and medicine and private education.

The protests of recent days, held in the midst of the worst heat wave of the summer, are small compared to other mobilizations, such as the one Macri faced in 2017 when he changed the pension update system or the one that opposed benefits prisons for those convicted of crimes against humanity perpetrated during the last dictatorship.

Milei has warned that if her megalaw runs aground in Congress, the fiscal adjustment will be harsher than she had initially estimated, with a cut in public spending of more than $20 billion.

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