Argentina: Protests Continue Over Milei's Deregulation Decree

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Facts

  • Hundreds of Argentines took to the streets nationwide for the second consecutive day on Thursday to rally against deregulatory measures that Pres. Javier Milei announced a day earlier — with clashes between security forces and protesters reported in the central province of Córdoba.1
  • The all-around reforms — which are expected to face legal and political challenges — repeal regulations covering the housing rental market and land ownership, eliminate price controls, facilitate exports, and include steps to privatize all state-owned companies.2
  • With this sweeping emergency decree, Milei is striving to fulfill his campaign pledge to liberalize the country's economy. Under Argentina's Constitution, presidential decrees stay in place until both houses of Congress vote to abolish them.3
  • However, an injunction for the decree to be declared unconstitutional has already been filed in federal court. Argentina's General Labor Confederation has called a demonstration for next Wednesday before the main courthouse in Buenos Aires, insisting that the decree must be revoked.4
  • Anti-government protests had erupted even before the deregulatory package was announced. Left-wing demonstrators gathered in the central Plaza de Mayo square — an annual protest each December — to remember protesters who died in 2001 and rallied against shock austerity measures that include plans to cut public spending by 3% of gross domestic product.5
  • Last week, Security Minister Patricia Bullrich announced a controversial new security protocol to maintain public order during protests, allowing forces to use force to prevent blockades. Despite critics claiming that this could lead to a crackdown on civil society, a recent poll found that two-thirds of those surveyed support the measures.6

Sources: 1Buenos aires times, 2Bloomberg, 3Financial times, 4Mercopress, 5Economist and 6Reason.com.

Narratives

  • Left narrative, as provided by Guardian. Argentina's radical libertarian president is acting as if he were an absolute monarch, unlawfully using the emergency decree to bypass Congress and attack the rights of the working-class people. Ordinary citizens are finally waking up to their mistake in supporting his radical austerity platform in the elections.
  • Right narrative, as provided by Daily Wire. Argentines have given Milei a clear mandate to liberalize the economy and cut the country's out-of-control public expenditure, and this is exactly what he's done. Yet, the very Peronists responsible for Argentina's economic crisis are now trying to create chaos not to allow his administration to get rid of the parasitic state so they can blame liberalism for their own failures.

Predictions