Milei on collision course with Parliament

Argentinian President Javier Milei, who came into office on a radical economic reform agenda, had told Parliament on Friday that he will push for his programmes, and he will do so whether the parliamentarians help him or not. Earlier, Parliament had rejected his reform plan by half. Milei said that he would use all the powers available to the executive to push for reform.

Milei’s programme goes against the popular grain of subsidies. He had cut down subsidies on fuel and transport, and people are feeling the pain of it with a high rate of inflation raging in the country. He has devalued the peso by 50 per cent, and ended subsidies and removed many of the regulations. He says that these difficult decisions are necessary before things can get better.

There are lawsuits against his reforms in the courts from labour unions. It is interesting that while the Argentinians elected a radical president, the parliamentary majority belongs to politicians of the populist kind, including the labour-supported Peronists. But Milei is only too ready to confront the old-school parliamentarians, whom he calls the ‘caste of professional politicians’. His message to the poor, “You don’t get out of poverty by magic. You get out of poverty with capitalism, savings and hard work.”

Milei says that he has brought down inflation from 25.5 per cent per month – he was elected in November – to 20.6 per cent per month in January, and he hopes to bring it down further to 15 per cent month in February. Last year, the inflation was at the high rate of 254 per cent. “We have avoided hyperinflation. Our objective is to continue lowering inflation…and finish up cleaning the [central bank’s balance sheet]. Once the central bank is cleaned up, we are planning to lift exchange controls…the IMF estimates we could do it by the middle of the year.” It is this confidence, his critics and observers call it super-confidence, that is driving his economic programme. There have been warnings that it might not be easy to impose such austere measures on a people suffering from inflation and poverty.

When the Argentinian Congress rejected the Omnibus Bill of radical reforms sent by Milei, the president hit back saying, “Our government programme was voted by 56 per cent of Argentines and we are not willing to negotiate it with those who destroyed the country. We know that it will not be easy to change a system in which politicians have enriched themselves at the expense of Argentines.”

His Bill of 660 articles was whittled down to 300, though the concession was made to delegate to the executive to make emergency economic plan decisions. Milei does not want to send back his Bill to Parliament until the end of mid-term elections in late 2025. Milei hopes that the party position in Parliament would change in his favour with his party, La Libertad Avanza (LLA) gaining strength. But he is determined that his plan cannot be diluted and there is no alternative to Argentina to come out of the economic crisis. Milei has been quite open about his economic plan and the majority of people voted for him because they seem to believe that it has some virtue to deliver Argentina. It is this, with strong belief that the people of Argentina back him, that powers to Milei to stick to his guns as it were.

And he is also very clear where he stands on the international place. He says he is with the United States in contrast to his counterparts in Brazil and Mexico, Luiz Inacio da Silva Luna and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, and he considers American Republican presidential aspirant Donald Trump his personal friend.