Javier Milei wants to re-found Argentina and warns that he is willing to do it with or without the help of politics.
At the opening of the ordinary sessions in Congress, the Argentine president this Friday harshly criticized the legislators who rejected his radical reform law of the State and announced a package of “anti-caste” measures to take away their privileges.
But then he extended his hand to them: he offered fiscal relief to the provinces in exchange for the approval of the rejected law and called on officials and opponents to a great national pact that includes deregulating the labor market and reopening the retirement system to private capital.
PACT OF MAY 25 pic.twitter.com/bS2apasZGK
— Office of the President (@OPRArgentina) March 2, 2024
Milei asked for “patience and trust” from Argentine society, which in recent months has suffered firsthand the consequences of one of the most abrupt public spending cuts in Argentine democracy.
The coming months will be even harder, but the sacrifice will be worth it, she promised.
He asked politicians to “depose private interests” in favor of a “May Pact” – as he called the agreement that he intends to sign in the city of Córdoba on May 25 – aimed at liberalizing the Argentine economy and reducing the State to a minimum. .
Among the ten points of his ultraliberal project, Argentina's commercial openness and the obligation to have fiscally balanced accounts also stand out.
The Government has a titanic task to add the provincial governors and opposition legislators to the cause given the mutual distrust and great polarization of Argentina.
“I invite them, but I don't think they will come,” Milei said almost at the end of a speech full of darts against them.
The carrot and stick strategy had a clear recipient: the governors of the Argentine provinces, key to deciding the vote of the legislators of their territories.
The ruling party does not control any of the country's 24 jurisdictions and in recent weeks has maintained an open war with the governors over the suspension of million-dollar transfers.
The president of the Patagonian province of Chubut, Nacho Torres, even threatened Milei with interrupting the supply of gas and oil if he did not receive the withheld funds.
The president offers them money in exchange for political support that until now has been elusive.
The most critical moment in Milei's relationship with the Legislative Branch was last February 6, when the Chamber of Deputies rejected key articles of the law with which the Government sought to dismantle the Argentine State.
Known as the
omnibus law
due to its great length, it granted legislative powers to Milei for two years, opened the door to the privatization of public companies and included reforms to the fiscal, tax, educational, health and labor systems, among others.
Furious at the defeat, Milei gave the order to withdraw the parliamentary initiative and lashed out through social networks against governors and deputies.
Although he has declared that he does not need Congress to govern, this Friday's offer shows the opposite.
His party, La Libertad Avanza, has a parliamentary weakness unprecedented since Argentina's return to democracy: its seats represent 15% of the deputies of the Lower House (38 out of a total of 257) and 10% of the Senate (7 of 72).
Milei arrived at Congress minutes before accompanied by his sister, Karina Milei, the president's most trusted person, today Secretary General of the Presidency.
At the end of the stairs, the vice president, Victoria Villarruel, who had opened the legislative session a while before, was waiting for him.
Before going to the lectern and starting to speak, Milei signed the book of honor of the Chamber of Deputies, where she left her most repeated slogan handwritten: “Long live fucking freedom.”
She then patted backs, shook hands and kissed.
She then began to read her speech, which lasted just over an hour.
“Orgy of public spending”
The far-right dedicated the first half of his speech to describing what, according to him, is “the most critical moment” in Argentine history, with inflation exceeding 254% and a poverty projection of 60%.
Although these rates skyrocketed after the first measures of his government, the president attributed it entirely to his predecessors.
“This madness to which populism has led us has caused the average salary in dollars, at the parallel exchange rate, to be 300 dollars (…) Populism took away 90% of our income, reaching a level of madness such that a third of formal workers are poor,” he said.
“After more than 100 years of insisting on an impoverishing model, the last 20 years have been an economic disaster, an orgy of public spending, uncontrolled emissions, which resulted in the worst inheritance that any government in Argentine history has ever received” said the president about the 16 years that Peronism governed and the four that the right of Mauricio Macri, today his partner, did.
Milei, at the risk of repeating himself, listed some of the components of that “inheritance”: a “huge” external debt, “negative” reserves in the Central Bank, “repressed” prices and “unbridled” monetary issuance.
Milei also described a “society abandoned to its fate” in terms of security, with the streets “taken over by chaos and disorder” and the security forces “mistreated and trampled”;
a crisis in education “that drags on for decades” and another “of health shortages.”
In addition, she attacked the social assistance model for considering that “it works as spoils of war for leftist organizations.”
The Government has suspended food shipments to soup kitchens that feed millions of citizens who do not have enough to eat.
Unlike his inauguration message, Milei this time emphasized the corruption of politics.
“The State is a criminal organization designed so that in every procedure there is a bribe,” said the president, with direct references to the scandal over the alleged irregular contracting of insurance that affects former President Alberto Fernández.
Next, Milei drew an imaginary border between the caste – made up of politicians, trade unionists, businessmen and journalists – and good Argentines and announced a package of measures to eliminate privileges of the former.
Unions must hold free elections, the privileged retirements of the president and vice president will disappear, senior officials convicted of corruption will lose their benefits and will not be able to present candidates, and the number of political advisors will be reduced by law, among others.
The Government will also close the state news agency, Télam, considering it a space for “Kirchnerist propaganda.”
“The caste does not applaud, it does not applaud,” senior officials and supporters invited by the Government sang from the boxes.
Milei maintains that the fiscal deficit is the central cause of Argentina's decline and announced that he will present a project to penalize by law the president and legislators who approve a deficit budget.
It was the first time Milei spoke in front of Congress.
At her presidential inauguration on December 10, she chose to turn her back on the legislators in a symbolic gesture with which she sought to differentiate herself from them.
Tonight she broke tradition again: the speech started at nine at night, instead of taking place around noon.
After finishing, part of the opposition led by former president Mauricio Macri supported the call for a national agreement.
The Peronism of Unión por la Patria, on the other hand, showed its categorical rejection.
📄 #COMMUNICATION • THE ONE WHO DOESN'T SEE IT IS PRESIDENT MILEI.
Grievances and excuses do not cover reality.
⬇️ pic.twitter.com/EQrZnViiDw
— UP Deputies (@Diputados_UxP) March 2, 2024
Protest outside Congress
While the president spoke before Congress, thousands of people gathered outside to demonstrate against him.
The surroundings of the center of Buenos Aires, fenced and guarded by 5,000 police officers since mid-afternoon, became a dungeon for curious people seeking to get closer to Congress and office workers who could not get past the checkpoints around them to reach their homes.
Left-wing social movements demonstrated in the square in front of Congress from three in the afternoon, and hundreds of self-organized protesters approached the fences that surrounded the premises at night.
None of them managed to listen to Milei, who inside the room promised a new social pact to deregulate work and open the retirement system to private capital.
The street response, however, was clear.
“The country is not for sale,” the protesters shouted, “Milei, trash, you are the dictatorship,” they harangued.
On the corner of Callao and Rivadavia, right in front of Congress, the police used tear gas to repress some protesters who tried to overturn a fence that separated them from others who went to show their support for Milei.
“Go to Cuba!
"Long live freedom!" they shouted from the other side, where no one knew what the president was saying.
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