Argentina: The fear is that discontent will overflow

Approximate reading time: 4 minutes, 45 seconds

Before his opening speech to the legislative sessions, the far-right Argentine President Javier Milei argued that “as long as Congress has its current composition, we believe that it is difficult to approve reforms,” which left a taste that he plans to govern by decree, through above the institutions.

Milei minimized the impact of his adjustment by trying to clear up doubts about the stability that international organizations insist on: “there is zero chance of a social uprising, unless there is an event with political motivations or foreign infiltrators.

For a week, Argentina experienced an unprecedented escalation that pitted the Milei government against almost all the governors, based on the withholding of co-participation funds from the Patagonian province of Chubut, a situation finally resolved by a court ruling, but which remains latent.

The provincial president Ignacio Torres (of the Republican Proposal, a neoliberal party allied with Milei) retorted that “if they don’t get rid of us by Wednesday, there will not be one more barrel of oil coming out of Chubut for Argentina.”

But the crash did not occur and the oil continued to flow: a court ruling (from a judge in Rawson, the capital of Chubut) ordered the national government to “cease withholding” the funds until progress is made “in a refinancing of the debt”.

Surely this will not be the first or the last time that the Judiciary intervenes in this hot political scenario. The ruling gave Torres breathing space, avoiding carrying out a threat that he probably did not want or could carry out.

Milei, from the social network of his friend Elon Musk (to whom he had already granted access to satellite telephony and promised him lithium), had endorsed a discriminatory publication that sought to mock Torres by portraying him in a photo with the features of a person with Down Syndrome.

How much hate can there be in a person who sarcastically tweets laughing at a boy with Down Syndrome? “What could have happened to that person in life to have so much hatred and resentment?” Torres questioned. “This Argentina will never move forward if we put imaginary enemies in the ring, promoting hatred and contempt to get real problems off the agenda,” responded the governor.

Milei insists on his provocative strategy, with the apparent objective that the public agenda concentrates on trifles, on irrelevant matters, distancing public opinion from the serious events that his management generates. Her public fight with Lali Espósito managed to put people who didn’t even know her songs on the singer’s side. Lali was not intimidated: at the Cosquín Rock Festival she dedicated “Who are they?” to “the liars, the stupid, the bad people, those who do not value, those who do not value their country.”

Concerns

In Argentina, a contest of nonsense seems to be underway, in which the millineist government is winning by far, while senior US and International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials fear that this bombardment of adjustment and other repressive measures to calm dissent, whether the party ends with a social outbreak or the balkanization of the country.

The outbreak of 2001 (see main photo) is still in the minds of Argentines, the corollary of a political, economic, social and institutional crisis, which led to the widespread popular revolt under the slogan “Let them all go”, and caused the resignation of President Fernando de la Rúa, who left the Casa Rosada by helicopter. The outbreak was followed by a period of instability: five people held the presidency in a few months.

Just days after her visit to the country and holding a meeting with the libertarian president (but also with the military, businessmen and union leaders), the deputy managing director of the IMF, the Indian-American economist and academic Gita Gopinath, raised objections to the dollarization that promotes – at least in words – President Milei, when evaluating and analyzing his economic program.

Although there were some conversations between the Americans and IMF officials with local politicians, businessmen, exporters, representatives of banks and investment funds intent on keeping the Argentine wealth that Milei promised to privatize, little was known about the conversations with military, in which Vice President Victoria Villarruel, close to the military commanders, did not participate since the time of the genocidal civil-military dictatorship.

“For any exchange rate regime, including dollarization, good preconditions are needed (…) a sufficient amount of reserves and good macro policy frameworks are needed,” said Gita Gopinath, after warning that “what we see from the experience of other countries “Dollarization does not solve all problems.” “If you don’t have fiscal discipline, even if you dollarize, you can end up having problems if you are not able to control, contain your fiscal policy, so it is not a panacea,” she said.

“Confidencial”, a monthly newsletter that usually reaches foreign embassies, points out that the idea of ​​the military consulted would be to “intervene only if a social or subversive uprising or outbreak occurs.” What worries the US government (and other Europeans) and the IMF is the impoverishment and destabilization produced by the government’s regressive economic measures.

From Rome, Pope Francis sent a message to the judges of Argentina, in which he assured that the State “is called to exercise this central role of redistribution and social justice” today “more important than ever,” while warning about “dehumanizing and violent models” and maintained that, in public positions, “the legitimacy of origin is not enough.”

«Social rights are not free. The wealth to sustain them is available, but it requires adequate, rational and equitable political decisions,” said the Catholic Supreme Pontiff. For his part, presidential spokesperson Manuel Adorni said that in the Government “we respect and listen to the words of Pope Francis,” but noted that “we do not agree with some of them and it is very good that this is so.”

Continuing with the string of libertarian nonsense, Adorni surprised (some) by announcing on Tuesday that Milei had ordered to “eliminate the use of inclusive language in the State” and everything “related to the gender perspective in public administration.”

Sometimes the economic information filtration systems that the Government makes to paid accounts on social network bank and playpen.

But the presidential rejection was not due to the alleged false content of the shipment; Almost everything that was mentioned in the account of Emilio Raiden, Milei’s informal advisor on economic matters, is a topic of conversation not only in the Ministry of Finance, but with the IMF authorities and, above all, with the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo. But the data was explosive for a government that does not have foreign currency and is under pressure all the time to devalue again, and that could anticipate an explosion.

“Sorry, president, it was an expression of wish,” Raiden wrote on his X account, after having received pressure for the commotion his message caused. But the impact had already occurred.

In their troll and bot farms it is about creating the collective imagination that the government feels comfortable in the conflict, and that retreating or giving in would mean losing initiative, disenchanting its electoral base. And they fear that their power will be liquefied in negotiations where they would lose.

Milei wants to perpetuate the image of the lion willing to do anything with the presidential pen to compensate for all his other weaknesses, based on the premise that what goes well will be his merit and what doesn’t will surely be the fault of “the caste.” This adventurous policy lacks a guarantee against failure and that is why she fears that some major conflict or social unrest will get out of hand…

By Aram Aharonian

Fuente: Estrategia.la

*Uruguayan journalist and communicator. Master in Integration. Creator and founder of Telesur. He chairs the Foundation for Latin American Integration (FILA) and directs the Latin American Center for Strategic Analysis (CLAE, www.estrategia.la)