Against "legalized looting", the "chainsaw", tens of thousands of Argentines demonstrated on Wednesday January 24 against the austerity reforms of the ultraliberal Argentine President Javier Milei, faced with a general strike and his first major protest , after a month and a half in power.

“The homeland is not for sale”, “Here, there is no caste!”

"Eating is not a privilege"... Banners, signs, under the gaze of a puppet bearing the image of Milei, filled the immense Parliament Square in Buenos Aires, at the call of the union giant CGT, pro-Peronist central (close to the previous government), which was joined by other unions, social organizations, and radical leftists.

According to Buenos Aires police chief Diego Kravetz, 80,000 people were present around the Parliament.

A CGT spokesperson told AFP there were up to 500,000 people in the capital.

In the provinces, in Cordoba, Corrientes, Rosario, Tucuman, among others, the media reported demonstrations drawing thousands of people.

“An organized anti-Mileism”

In the capital, transport, shops and banks operated normally on Wednesday morning.

Buses and trains ran until 7 p.m., before a planned total stop until midnight, with station platforms and stations deserted at the end of the day.

Air traffic has been affected.

The company Aerolineas Argentinas announced that it would cancel 295 flights, including international ones, "affecting more than 20,000 passengers", at a cost "which will exceed $2.5 million".

Demonstration in Buenos Aires during a general strike against the policies of ultra-liberal Argentine President Javier Milei, January 24, 2024 © TOMAS CUESTA / AFP

“The country is not stopping!” trumpeted Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, mocking a “minimum” mobilization – 40,000 in Buenos Aires according to her – “compared to the number of people who have decided to go to work ": a "total failure".

She denounced "mafia unions, managers of poverty (...) which resist change democratically decided by society".

While unions predict much greater social conflict in March, under the cumulative effect of austerity and inflation, Wednesday was "a demonstration of force, of the power of the streets, the idea being to show what will be the social resistance to Milei", political scientist Ivan Schuliaquer analyzed for AFP.

Also show that even if recent polls remain favorable to Milei (from 47% to 55% positive opinion) “there is already a well-organized anti-Mileism”.

For the executive, "there is no alternative" to austerity, to clear the accounts of a structurally indebted country and stabilize an economy strangled at 211% annual inflation.

He denounces unions "on the wrong side of History", and a "absolute nonsense" strike, announced in December 18 days after Milei's inauguration, and while the reforms follow "the democratic game" in Parliament.

Demonstration in Buenos Aires during a general strike against the policies of ultra-liberal Argentine President Javier Milei, January 24, 2024 © Luis ROBAYO / AFP

There, the government is pushing to have its gigantic reform package known as the "Omnibus Law" adopted but the balance of parliamentary forces - Milei's party, La Libertad Avanza, is only the 3rd force - forces the executive to compromise .

MPs warned

In recent negotiations with the opposition, he proposed withdrawing 141 of the 664 initial provisions.

Privatizations (41 state companies initially targeted), indexation of pensions, delegation of powers to the executive in the name of "economic emergency", and provincial resources, are the main points of friction.

The Chamber of Deputies must examine a first version of the text next week, and the CGT has ordered parliamentarians "to decide whether they are on the side of the workers or whether they are betraying them."

Demonstration in Buenos Aires during a general strike against the policies of ultra-liberal Argentine President Javier Milei, January 24, 2024 © STRINGER / AFP

On a legal level, the “Decree of Necessity and Emergency” (DNU) published in mid-December, which sets out the general framework for reforms, also encounters pitfalls: it has been the subject of more than 60 legal appeals. invoking its unconstitutionality.

Faced with the mobilization, Patricia Bullrich had promised to apply her "anti-blockade protocol", which instructs federal forces to intervene in the event of a cutoff in traffic routes.

Which de facto arose, under the effect of numbers.

“If we resisted the dictatorship which was a daily exercise of terror, how could we not confront this clown Bullrich?”

said ironically Rafael Klejzer, popular economy activist, who came to demonstrate against “legalized looting of the economy”.

No clashes had been reported more than three hours after the end of the rally at Parliament Square.

With AFP

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