BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Argentina’s Senate has begun what will likely be an all-night voting marathon on the details of the President Javier Milei sweeping proposals to cut spending and increase its own powers on Thursday, shortly after giving general approval to the plan in a narrow vote as thousands of protesters clashed with police outside.
Senators voted 37 to 36 on Wednesday night to give provisional approval to the two bills after a heated, day-long debate as thousands of protesters took to the streets, setting cars on fire and throwing Molotov cocktails while hundreds of security forces Federal security guards retreated with rounds of tear gas and water. cannons.
The vote – decided by the vice president’s tie-breaking vote Victoria Villaruel – gave a big boost to Milei, whose efforts to reform the government and economy faced strong resistance in the opposition-dominated Argentine Congress.
“Tonight is a triumph for the Argentine people and the first step towards recovering our greatness,” Milei posted on X, calling his projects “the most ambitious legislative reform of the last 40 years.”
But critical elements of the sweeping legislation will still have to survive an article-by-article vote in the Senate. After that, the project returns to the Chamber of Deputies, where lawmakers must approve any modifications before Milei can officially claim his first legislative victory.
Lawmakers on the right and left have clashed over several parts of the 238-article state reform bill, including declaring a state of emergency for a year and delegating broad powers to the president over energy, pensions, security and others. matters. until the end of Milei’s term in 2027.
Other controversial measures include an incentive scheme that would give investors lucrative tax breaks for 30 years.
Milei is a political outsider with just two years of experience as a legislator, and his 3-year-old party, Liberty Advances, holds just 15% of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 10% in the Senate.
He has failed to pass a single piece of legislation in his six months as president, raising questions about whether he will be able to execute his ambitious project to reduce the deficit and stimulate growth. Instead, he used executive powers to reduce subsidies, fire thousands of civil servants, devalue the currency and deregulate parts of the Argentine economy.
The spending cuts and currency devaluation that Milei provided – at least in the short term – deepened the recession, increased poverty to 55% and caused annual inflation to rise to 300%.
“If this law is approved, we will lose many of our labor and social security rights,” said professor Miriam Rajovitcher, 54, protesting before the vote alongside colleagues who say they have had to reconfigure their lives since Milei. it reduced school budgets and devalued the currency. “I’m much worse.”
Analysts say the promised benefits of Milei’s reforms – a stable currency, more controlled inflation, new foreign investment – will not materialize without a political consensus to convince foreign investors that his changes are here to stay. Milei’s administration said it wants to reach a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund, to which Argentina already owes US$44 billion.
“Everyone is waiting to see,” said Marcelo J. García, Americas director at geopolitical risk firm Horizon Engage. “Investors say, ‘Yes, we love what you’re saying, but we need to see if this is sustainable.”
Milei’s allies said they made tough concessions on Wednesday. His party, the Liberty Advances, agreed not to sell the country’s post office, main airline Aerolíneas Argentinas, or public radio service, leaving only a handful of state-owned companies, including Argentina’s nuclear power company, in the bloc. for possible privatization.
Milei’s original proposal late last year to privatize more than 40 Argentine state-owned companies provoked an uproar in the country’s powerful labor movement, dominated by Peronists.
This was heard before the Senate vote on Wednesday in the center of Buenos Aires, as bankers, teachers, truck drivers and thousands of trade unionists and activists converged around Congress. They shouted, “Our country is not for sale!”
