In his first minutes as President, when he gave his inaugural speech, Javier Milei decided to turn his back on Congress and 58 days later, it was Congress that turned its back on him, forcing him to withdraw the project from the premises, since his allies dialogueists, they did not fully accompany either.
Two months after taking office, the Milei Government was left at a complex crossroads. He must choose between changing his intransigent attitude, sitting down to negotiate or continuing on the path that was envisioned in the days after the failure of the law, of hardening his positions and advancing with the reforms that he needs outside of Congress. . “We are not going to continue arguing with those who demand to maintain their privileges.”
The Government’s first reaction was to conceal its political defeat, which was surprising and found the President outside the country on a trip to Israel. His operators on social networks went from sending memes to arguing that everything had been a strategy by Milei to insult “the caste” that opposes the reforms. And he redoubled the bet: he has 3,000 extra structural reforms in the pipeline and also said that the Transitional Unit for the Deregulation of the Economy, led by Federico Sturzenegger, is advancing with more decrees of Necessity and Urgency.
Added to this is that the Government’s legal team is evaluating moving forward with regulations and administrative decisions that also have reformist effects for the coming months. According to Milei himself, the more than 300 articles of the DNU and the 600 articles of the omnibus law represent 25% of the reforms that he has planned. In the case of the omnibus law, the head of the La Libertad Avanza block, Oscar Zago, already warned that the president decided not to discuss the law. So how does the Government plan to move forward with these changes without Congress? It is a mystery that may be revealed next March 1 when the president speaks before Congress where he will announce the Government’s legislative agenda for 2024.
Despite this first legislative defeat, the Government is optimistic and leans on possible economic achievements that are still only seen in an Excel spreadsheet from the Ministry of Economy. Officials and Milei himself say in conversations with businessmen that the orthodox adjustment they are applying is already bearing fruit. They swear that January would close with a primary surplus, close to financial balance, and they plan to announce in March that they have reached zero deficit. Milei also hopes to say that inflation is going down, highlight that the Central Bank is not issuing more money and that reserves are increasing. The challenge still unanswered is how the Government will ensure that salaries regain their purchasing power and thus defuse a social bad mood that threatens its popularity.
The setback in Congress left wounds that will take a long time to heal and some may never heal again. The president made the decision to blackmail the governors with whom he was negotiating the approval of the law and also each of the legislators who he voted against. He put together blacklists that he published on the social network X and also liked and shared all the criticism of those he called “traitors.” According to Milei, they are “Kirchnerists with good manners.” “We are publishing the names and photos of the traitors who lied to their voters, so that people know them,” he added.
In that group are the governors of Córdoba Martín Llaryora, at the head, supported by Maximiliano Pullaro from Santa Fe; the missionary Hugo Passalacqua, the Rio Negro Alberto Weretilneck; Rolando Figueroa from Neuquén and Gustavo Saenz from Salta. All of them distributed between the blocks We Make Federal Coalition, led by Miguel Ángel Pichetto, and Federal Innovation, which voted against the delegated powers. “The regime is going to try to defend itself and maintain its privileges. It is part of a fight that we knew we were going to have to fight,” Milei launched from Israel, where he also said that discretionary transfers to the provinces had already fallen by 98%. Milei’s constant economic suffocation of the provinces hinders dialogue with the governors and was one of the main reasons for complaint during the negotiation in Congress.
One of the issues being discussed at this time in the Government is what to do with the people from Córdoba who are in the Cabinet, such as the Secretary of Transportation, Franco Moggeta; the president of Banco Nación, Daniel Tillard or the head of Anses, Osvaldo Giordano. The latter was more exposed due to a family situation. The President shared a tweet that said: “The wife of the Director of Government Anses, Osvaldo Giordano, deputy Alejandra Torres, voted against. “They should throw him out as a traitor.”
All of these officials are more linked to the management of the former governor, Juan Schiaretti, than to that of the current one, Martín Llaryora. Even Florencio Randazzo, Schiaretti’s presidential running mate, was on the list of traitors.
Others who are also in the Government’s sights are the officials that Sergio Massa left in different areas, such as Indec, Migrations, AFIP, Customs, AySA, the Ministry of Transportation and even in the Chamber of Deputies. Both the officials who respond to Schiaretti and those linked to Massa were already in their sights because they saw a conflictive session coming. In the Government, from the very beginning of the week they were attentive to the movements of the allied deputies to detect possible betrayals. Today with the result on the table, all the places that were given to the allies are under review.
The discussion got bogged down in the vote on section H of article 4. The debate had been going on for just over three hours, the “privilege issues” had already ended, the delegated powers were being discussed and the text of the law gave Milei power absolute control over the 29 trust funds created by the National State that, in some cases, function as funds for works for the provinces. The ruling party was warned by different deputies that they were not going to accompany him and they even suggested removing him from the vote. Nicolás Massot tried to exclude two funds that were of interest to a group of governors, to unblock the vote, but Martín Tetaz said that this was “an outrage,” because they suspected that they were favoring friendly governors. This discussion is an example of the lack of control that exists in Argentine politics, because both Massot and Tetaz are not liked by Milei, but even so, they supported the law in the general vote last Friday. In the vote on section H, Massot voted in favor and Tetaz voted against, but at the end of the day the two remained on the list of traitors published by the Government.
When the discussion of article 5 was discussed, only one of the 6 subsections remained standing. The catastrophe was inevitable, so Miguel Ángel Pichetto, with quick reflexes, asked to go to an intermediate room. At that time, Milei was connected by telephone with Santiago Caputo who was following the vote from an office in the Chamber of Deputies. During the intermission meeting, Caputo conveyed the president’s intention to withdraw the law. At that meeting were Oscar Zago from the ruling bloc, Cristian Ritondo and Silvia Lospennato from the PRO, Miguel Ángel Pichetto from Hacemos Coalión Federal and Rodrigo De Loredo, from radicalism. After a heated discussion, Lospennato proposed returning the project to committee to prevent Milei’s envoys from withdrawing the project. “The short-term program did not change. I gave the order to lower the law because the program is not affected. I’d rather nothing come out than a bad law. And much less a bad law that defends the privileges of corrupt politicians,” Milei stated.
Now the omnibus law will begin the legislative process again, although the Government is no longer interested. What it will focus on is strengthening the anti-caste narrative, as it did in the CGT marches or the confrontation over the demonstrations outside Congress. “The people will never forget the names of those who, being able to facilitate the reforms that were elected For 56% of Argentines, they decided to continue playing into the hands of the caste,” they wrote from the official accounts.
In terms of popularity, Milei has numbers that still have a positive image above 50% and the Government speculates that this conflict is good for them.
From social networks, after the legislative failure, the possibility of the Government calling a plebiscite began to go viral, as the president had anticipated during the campaign. At this point, Milei himself raised the idea by liking the comments that were along those lines. One of the cons of a plebiscite is that it is not binding, unless it is proposed by Congress. Another limitation is time because it is required that it be called between 60 and 120 days before its announcement in the Official Gazette. In addition, the cost that would be involved in advertising and logistics must be taken into account when Milei says that “there is no money.” And finally, an adverse result would be the greatest risk, a devastating blow that could even imply Milei’s resignation. The Government told NEWS that they have not yet considered holding a plebiscite, although they do not rule out that the dizzying dynamics of politics push them towards that decision.
On Friday, February 2, the Government had achieved the general approval of its law “Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines.” By regulation, all laws are approved in two votes, one in general and one in particular. The parliamentary fragility of the Milei Government was successfully going through a first process in the Chamber of Deputies, because it had managed to build a majority of 144 votes, against 109, when it has its own bloc of only 38 deputies, but things did not turn out as they were. planned.
After the parliamentary defeat, a ghost began to run through the ranks of the opposition: the comparison with Alberto Fujimori, who, in a coup d’état, closed Congress in Peru in 1992 and governed until 2000. But it was also remembered that Pedro Castillo, in 2022, tried to do something similar and ended up in prison.
Milei is convinced that he retains the social support that led him to the presidency and that will allow him to advance at the cost of anything. But for that, he must first demonstrate that he can lower inflation, achieve stability and for Argentines to recover purchasing power.
