The ultraliberal Javier Milei yesterday faced the second general strike against his policy of brutal economic cuts since he became president of Argentina on December 10. After five months in the Casa Rosada, Milei lives immersed in a permanent battle for credibility, to make Argentines finally trust in a leader who is going to transform the country, who is going to change the feeling of perpetual crisis and insecurity that they feel. dominates for decades. The strike, relatively successful, was another chapter in that battle. Called by the main labor union in the country, the Peronist General Confederation of Labor (CGT), it is enough to paralyze public transport so that the main cities, and especially Buenos Aires – where a third of the country lives, including its metropolitan area – , present a holiday appearance, just as happened yesterday.
Workers on trains, subways and a good part of the urban and metropolitan bus lines joined the strike; Thus they managed to limit mass access to the Argentine capital and, although there were no picketers to prevent arriving by car in Buenos Aires, many employees decided to stay home. However, a large part of commerce opened and some private schools offered classes, although with fewer students. Most flights were affected and airlines quantified the losses at around 60 million euros.
Unlike the first general strike against Milei, on January 24, yesterday there were no picketers blocking streets or accesses, nor a demonstration in Buenos Aires. In this way, the CGT tried to maximize the strike because to achieve a large mobilization it would have been forced to allow public transportation to operate, even partially.
There were no serious incidents, but the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, got on a bus in Buenos Aires and assured that there were attacks against bus drivers who decided not to support the strike.
Héctor Daer, one of the three leaders of the CGT, described the strike as “forceful” and urged the government to “take note” and “reconfigure its adjustment policy.”
However, the images of a half-empty Buenos Aires as a thermometer of the strike do not mean that Milei has less support today than yesterday. In fact, the president turned the strike called by some top-down unions discredited by their links with Peronism and corruption, into an argument in favor of his project to refound the country, which basically involves reducing the State to a minimum and trusting the fate of the Argentines to the freedom of private initiative.
In the morning, the spokesperson for the Casa Rosada, Manuel Adorni, described the strike as “far-fetched” and “an attack on people’s pockets and freedom.” The day before, Adorni had drawn a line between those who support the strike and those who do not, between those who resist the modernization of Argentina and those who do not. “They stop those who want to continue making Argentina a path of servitude, the fundamentalists of backwardness who carry the burden on the backs of the workers. To those who plan to extort Argentines to return to power, this administration informs them that they are only going to earn the contempt of all those who tomorrow (yesterday) want and, furthermore, need to go to work,” declared Adorni. Meanwhile, Milei was campaigning on the networks, popularizing the hashtag “I don’t stop”, spreading a photo on X with a t-shirt with said slogan.
The Government set up a special telephone number for workers to report “extortion” by the unions to force them to go on strike and assured that it received nearly 2,000 calls. He also made it clear that, contrary to tradition, yesterday’s salary would be deducted from the payroll of the public employees who supported the strike.
Milei won last year’s elections, in the second round, with 55% of the votes. In relation to that percentage, popular support for the far-right leader has fallen, but his positive image remains high, 46.5% – according to data from a survey from the beginning of May by the consulting firm Synopsis -, despite the fact that the horizon social situation is dark: cuts have already begun to be applied – especially in pensions –, there have been thousands of public layoffs, dozens of state agencies are expected to close, public works have been paralyzed, poverty is growing – it is almost 60% of Argentines – and annual inflation, although it decreases slightly, stands at 288%. The result of the cut is that Argentina achieved a fiscal surplus during the first quarter, a macroeconomic figure that has not occurred since 2008.
Although it also has a negative image of 46.4%, the high support for Milei is explained because the libertarian is managing to maintain that polarizing discourse that places Peronism and Kirchnerism in opposition, embodied by former presidents Cristina Fernández and Alberto Fernández, as the origin of all the evils of Argentina.
In other words, Argentines still think that the anarcho-capitalist leader can work the miracle of pulling the country out of the hole, as proof that the same survey indicates an upward figure: 52.2% of citizens believe that the economic situation will have improved within of one year.