J avier, the far-right newly elected president of Argentina, is fraying. According to some polls published in Argentina, since he took office, almost a month ago, his popularity has been falling at astronomical speed, close to a point every day. Having won the elections with 56% of the vote, now the majority of citizens, even 55%, describe his management negatively. A real descent record when it just started.
Some confused Milei’s ability and his media support to capitalize on the malaise of Argentine society with the dream that the leader of Libertat Avança actually had a viable, reasonable and sustainable program to overcome the economic collapse.
His proposals involve liquidating a good part of Argentine society, which is considered a parasite because it needs subsidies or simple protection from the State, and a good part of what remains of the middle classes, those who demand quality public services, while reducing – them to almost absolute destitution, or throwing them into emigration. And the first steps have confirmed in their restlessness wide sectors of the country.
He began by promising a lightning shock plan that would end inflation, but now he places a return to something like price stability on the horizon of more than a year and a half. This week he came out assuring that two-thirds of the benefits of the measures he wants to apply will be felt no less than 15 years from now, around 2039. In his own words: “The [consequences] the voices of 15 years here. Your children and your grandchildren will live wonderfully well.” It is not surprising that the citizens begin to turn their backs on him, he promises them suffering for the rest of their lives.
The proposals include freezing the incomes of many citizens, starting with pensioners. The omnibus law that he has presented includes the repeal of the quarterly update of pensions, to leave it to the discretion of the Government. A critical issue if you take into account that Argentine inflation is estimated to have closed December at around 30% monthly. In other words, it will be 100% in one quarter. Not updating them means a loss of purchasing power of 50% every three months. Hell for retirees.
Other rules with telluric effects refer to housing rental legislation, which strips tenants of a large part of their rights; the repeal of labor legislation, imposing a new model that seeks to liquidate the presence of trade unions and which has been paralyzed by the courts, and the total liberalization of imports, which threatens to finish demolishing the low national production.
To give you an idea of ??what is underway, Milei wants to reduce the Argentine public deficit to zero from 5%, while in Spain the government of Mariano Rajoy, embarked on austerity policies during the last financial crisis, does not it never managed to lower it much beyond a point each year. Perhaps this is why the Galician has become an admirer of the Argentine, to the point of giving him his support in the electoral campaign.
Milei’s plan also includes a tax amnesty of doubtful effectiveness to surface the enormous amount of assets and capital that the wealthiest part of Argentine society has kept hidden abroad for generations.
But the package of measures goes beyond the purely economic, although the latter are of enormous importance and extend to trying to proclaim a state of “public emergency in economic, financial, fiscal, pension, security, defense, tariff, energy, health, administrative and social”. The president wants Congress to do the harakiri and approve the granting of exceptional powers, that is to say, to renounce the control task of the Executive, so that they are valid for two years, extendable for two more; that is to say, the entirety of his mandate. Milei seems to be clear that the problem is the Argentines and their representatives and has chosen to do everything without taking them into account; or against them. In a context of loss of popularity, this means resorting to repression.
It is no coincidence that this plan has been compared with the so-called enabling law that Adolf Hitler had approved by the Reichstag in March 1933 and which granted him full powers; on the latter he built the dictatorship. But fortunately for his fellow citizens, Milei does not enjoy the political strength that the Nazi leader had.
Milei came to the campaign driven by a media wave that was as programmed as it was artificial, at the service of a small group in favor of forceful solutions. And he won it despite the inconsistency and contradictions, with a threatening and superb tone. He presented himself as the bravo capable of hitting the table, insulting and shouting more than the other candidates; denied in hatred towards those who were not like him. Offering simple, even vindictive solutions to complex problems; something that the most desperate buy when they can’t take it anymore. And the Argentinians might think that, given their recent history, they couldn’t be worse than their predecessors. But they are already starting to think they were wrong.
The problem is that the dramatic operetta being performed at the Casa Rosada has the close support of 40% of the country. Among which, the well-to-do who think that Milei can be the bulldozer that applies the most drastic policies that they themselves could not implement when they governed, to then disappear from the scene. This is the case of characters such as ex-president Mauricio Macri, one of Milei’s key supporters.
And although the fall in Milei’s popularity heralds an imminent decline, her capacity to exacerbate the social crisis is very high. Surrogate policies have a sinister historical background. It is not easy to bring the beast back into the fold once it has been let loose.
