The ultra-liberal 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 engaged in a permanent battle for credibility, to make the Argentines finally trust in a leader who will transform the country, who will change the feeling of perpetual crisis and insecurity that has dominated them since decades ago The strike, relatively successful, was another chapter in this battle. Called by the country’s main labor union, the Peronist General Confederation of Labor (CGT), it is enough to paralyze public transport because the main cities, and especially Buenos Aires – where a third of the country lives, including the metropolitan area – present a holiday aspect, as happened yesterday.
The workers of trains, subways and a large part of urban and metropolitan bus lines joined the strike. They managed to limit mass access to the Argentine capital and, although there were no pickets to prevent arrival by car in Buenos Aires, many workers decided to stay at home. However, much of the trade opened and some private schools held classes, but with fewer students. Most flights were affected and the airlines quantified the losses at around 60 million euros.
Unlike the first general strike against Milei, on January 24, yesterday there were no pickets blocking streets or accesses, nor a demonstration in Buenos Aires. In this way, the CGT tried to maximize the stoppage, because in order to achieve a large mobilization it would have been forced to allow public transport to work, even partially.
There were no serious incidents, but the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, boarded a bus in Buenos Aires and assured that there were assaults 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 ordered the Government to “take note” and “reconfigure the adjustment policy”.
However, the images of an almost 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 verticalist unions and discredited for their links with Peronism and corruption into an argument in favor of the country’s refoundation project, which is basically to reduce the State to the minimum expression and entrust the fate of Argentines to the freedom of private initiative.
In the morning, the spokesman for the Casa Rosada, Manuel Adorni, described the strike as “outrageous” and “an attack on people’s pockets and freedom”. The previous day Adorni had drawn a line between those who support the shutdown and those who do not, between those who resist the modernization of Argentina and those who do not. “Stop those who want to continue making Argentina a path of servitude, the fundamentalists of backwardness who burden the backs of the workers. To those who think of extorting the Argentines to return to power, this Administration informs them that they will only earn the contempt of all those who tomorrow [for yesterday] want and, moreover, need to go to work”, declared Adorni. Meanwhile, Milei campaigned on the networks popularizing the hashtag “Jo no paro”, spreading on social networks a photo with a T-shirt with the aforementioned slogan.
The Government set up a special phone line for workers to report “extortion” by the unions to force them to strike, and claimed 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 workers who supported the strike.
Milei won last year’s elections, in the second round, with 55% of the vote. In relation to this percentage, popular support for the far-right leader has fallen, but his positive image remains high, 46.5% – according to data from a poll from the beginning of May by the Synopsis consultancy -, despite the fact that the social horizon is dark: cuts have already begun to be applied -especially to pensions-, thousands of public redundancies have taken place, the closure of dozens of state bodies is planned, public works have been paralyzed, poverty is growing – almost reaching 60% of Argentines – and annual inflation, although falling slightly, stands at 288%. The result of the cut is that Argentina achieved a fiscal surplus during the first quarter, a macroeconomic figure that had not occurred since 2008.
Although he also has a negative image of 46.4%, the high support for Milei can be explained by the fact that the libertarian is managing to maintain this polarizing discourse that places Peronism and Kirchnerism in front of him, embodied by former presidents Cristina Fernández and Alberto Fernández , as the origin of all Argentina’s ills.
In other words, Argentines still think that the anarcho-capitalist leader can work the miracle of pulling the country out of the well, as proof that the same survey indicates an upward figure: 52.2% of citizens believe that the economic situation will improved a year from now.
