Sebastian Fest Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Updated Saturday, March 2, 2024-17:18
Argentina Milei moderates the tone, offers an agreement and warns: "We are not looking for confrontation, but you will encounter an animal that you are not used to"
Javier Milei sometimes seems improvised and monothematic, a man who is not from this world based on his way of relating to others.
He loves him and hates him, but in recent days the Argentine president has finished showing that he has a plan for his project to come to fruition.
A very audacious plan, extremely risky, but one that combines histrionics, psychology, a lot of manipulation, some psychopathy, relentless obsession and iron conviction.
The night of Friday, March 1, 2024 is already part of the great milestones in the 40 years of Argentine democracy.
With the plan that he outlined in a good part of the 78 minutes of speech, advised on the staging and content by the government's biggest enigma, the young
Santiago Caputo
, Milei has managed to sow fear in the opposition, to the point of having almost silenced the always loquacious Kirchnerism in the premises.
It is the first time that the president has not been systematically interrupted when speaking.
Raúl Alfonsín, Carlos Menem, Fernando de la Rúa, Néstor Kirchner, Cristina Kirchner, Mauriicio Macri and Alberto Fernández
did not enjoy that situation.
And it is not precisely because there is widespread agreement and happiness with what Milei proposes and does, who arrived at the National Congress building in the middle of a very strong security operation and with protesters from the hard left shouting against him on the esplanade in front of the building. .
No, Milei's great asset today is his ability to disconcert.
To other people's, and sometimes to their own.
And to maintain the connection with the majority of those who voted for him.
"If you choose the path of confrontation, you will encounter a very different animal than the one you are used to," he told the stunned legislators in the middle of his speech.
"When faced with an obstacle I don't brake, I accelerate."
Milei has been in government for 82 days with sticks for the opposition, but on day 82 an unexpected carrot arrived, the "May Pact."
"I want to challenge you to show me that politics is more than what it is, that we can aspire to be better. With the desire to be wrong in my distrust of many of you, I want to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to you: I want to summon both governors as well as former presidents, as well as opposition leaders and leaders of the main political parties to lay down our personal interests and meet
on May 25 in Córdoba
for a new social contract called the May Pact, a social contract that establishes the 10 principles of the new Argentine economic order".
Felipe González
, a deep connoisseur of Argentina, pointed out more than once the inability of dialogue within the political class as the country's great problem.
A call as broad and specific - in terms of reference, theme and date - as MIlei's is, therefore, necessarily good news for the country.
The first section of the ultraliberal government ran with a very high level of tension, with disqualifications of all those who dared to propose something different from what the Executive Branch proposed and with an outburst of fury from the president in Jerusalem that led him to withdraw the lavish " "Bases Law" with which he intended to reform the country once and for all.
This was followed by the punishment of the governors, who began to be financially suffocated, and their response, especially the Patagonians, who
even threatened to cut off oil and gas to the rest of the country.
Too much tension and wear and tear for an Argentina that faces
one of the worst economic crises in its history
and in which the brutal increase in poverty is palpable in the streets due to the honesty of the economic variables - that is, prices - determined by Milei.
Argentines have been suffering for years from the stagnation of their economy and the growth of poverty, but the jump in recent months is undeniable.
And Milei and Caputo are clever in having created a new antinomy, which displaces Kirchnerism-anti-Kirchnerism, but the president governs from a hyper parliamentary minority.
Fighting with everyone all the time would damage your own chances of success and even democracy.
The "May Pact" does not include education and science, it is as economic as Milei is an economist.
And it has as a counterpart, almost blackmail, the promise of improving the immediate financing of the provinces.
It includes dangerous ideas, such as the State stopping partially financing political parties.
But
it is a concrete, real offer
, at the beginning of a government.
A real novelty in Argentina.
Macri and Bulrich, Milei fans facing each other
One wanted to protect the president and failed.
The other joined and today has the trust, admiration and gratitude of Javier Milei, who in October accused her of having planted bombs in kindergartens.
The first is the former president
Mauricio Macri
, the second is the Minister of Security,
Patricia Bullrich
.
The two are from PRO, the center-right party that was one of the three legs of the now defunct Together for Change (JxC) coalition.
Milei has a special relationship with Bullrich, who the day after being left out of the runoff called the current president and invited him to Macri's house to offer his unconditional support.
Macri had another idea, to negotiate that support and incorporate key PRO figures into the government.
The idea was not bad: La Libertad Avanza, Milei's party, is an entelechy.
It is estimated that more than half of the senior positions in the State structure still remain to be occupied, which means that Kirchnerism maintains, in fact, important decision-making positions.
But Milei doesn't give in.
Even so,
Macri immediately joined the call for the "May Pact"
.
There is a lot of government ahead and many difficulties.
That is the hope of the former president, who in a few days will once again lead the PRO in place of Bullrich, from whom multiple grudges separate him today.