What Milei is up to in Argentina
Argentina 's president, Javier Milei, has an approval rating of 46 percent. Thanks to his charisma or his plan for the economy? The article by Livio Zanotti, author of Ildiavolononmuoremai
President Milei seems to gain popularity from his own contradictions (a recent poll gives him 46% approval, almost 4 points more in 4 months). The various attempts to explain it fuel a debate which he avoids. It has a 24/7 marketing service , continuously updated, and uses it skilfully. Even the insults to journalists, as well as being harsh, are uninterrupted, regardless of political colour: one of the most well-known has sued him for defamation and others are about to follow him. The president has something for everyone, but he doesn't answer to anyone directly. His own party – La Libertà Avanza (LLA) – is split by the intrusions of his sister Karina, 51, whom he deferentially calls el Jefe and has appointed general secretary of the Chamber, adding the rank (and salary) of minister. Amid shouts and raised hands, his group leader in the Chamber of Deputies, Oscar Zago, 61, went off to make another group on his own; while the deputy Marcela Pagano, 40, ousted from the presidency of a commission ended up in the clinic for the trauma reported in the affair.
Overall, substance is no better than form. The collapse in the purchasing power of fixed incomes between January 1st and March 31st this year was 34.1%, worse than with the default of 2001. The first 4 months of the new government added another 3 million and 200 thousand people in total are poor (those who cannot purchase the essentials for food are considered to be poor: the retail prices of basic products such as milk, bread, meat, legumes have increased on average by 86%. A catastrophe visible to naked eye walking down the streets). Today they constitute 51.8 of the 47 million Argentines. The Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts the inflation rate at 150% at the end of 2024, the recession at 2.8 and unemployment (the official one, which does not take into account the very widespread illegal work) at 8%. Next year alone, inflation would fall to 45%, the recovery would be 5% and unemployment would be reduced by half a point from the current level. So the expected improvement in the economy will not significantly affect employment.
Nor are the underprivileged the only victims. Devaluation and inflation are also changing the lives of the wealthy middle class, forced to resort to savings in foreign currency to cope with increases of more than 200% in all services so far, from energy to transport to condominium expenses. Always in short supply of capital, medium and small businesses are all in serious trouble. Public healthcare is falling apart and private healthcare is increasingly less accessible, the school system of all levels is at risk of continuous strikes. In universities, older teachers have almost everywhere self-reduced their salaries in favor of younger colleagues who earn less, despite the fact that the major ones have announced the early closure of the academic year due to the exhaustion of funds. The government that contested their budget estimates now admits that it is planning a further emergency allocation. However, it is considered completely insufficient by the rectors, who accuse the government of wanting to use the crisis to "violate academic autonomy" by contesting its administrative capacity. It is a further reason for agitation and conflict.
Nobody knows with what degree of profound awareness, however in the reiterated project of destruction of the state, what Milei immediately deconstructs is his own discourse. And it is already a political operation. He interrupts an observation relating to the Middle Eastern situation to praise ("It's brilliant…") the advertisement for a multinational household appliances company that he saw on the street shortly before. Because he promotes the chainsaw and the blender, which he has chosen since the electoral campaign as the tools that best evoke the fury with which he promises to overthrow the institutions. His is a rhetoric of impressive statements. He makes proclamations of principle, indicates declared aims, manifests a constant radicality of speech (with frequent verbal aggressions and gratuitous insults, as mentioned). No reasoned operational program, consequent and compatible with the constitutional provisions, with the rights that derive from it, with the real numbers of the national economy. The discouragement of the population favors those who bet on forceful solutions.
With both legislative ventures blocked by Congress so far, the Maxi-decree and the Ley-omnibus (hundreds and hundreds of reforms forced together), Milei launched himself with the flamethrower on the acquired rights of workers. The reactions in the streets led him to look for a shortcut in the sudden and silent agreement with a powerful union that until the day before he had accused of bureaucratization and corruption. Yet at the same time he says: "If I want to reform labor law it seems madness, because the cognitive discord generated by public schools has brainwashed half the world…". Thus attacking unions and public education in one fell swoop. Without understanding, however, that he is shooting himself in the foot: in fact that cognitive discordance attributed to his critics means proclaiming one thing and doing another, resorting to open self-deception, which is precisely what he himself does with ever greater frequency in the attempt to escape one's own contradictions.
Favored by the fuss of social media, she sees even the most intimate digression as useful. The personal is political, it was said a long time ago, with very different horizons. Milei resorts to it without the slightest embarrassment. He shares firsthand the sudden end of an engagement announced with no less surprise a few weeks ago, when the known emotional life of the Argentine president was limited to his dialogues via medium with his favorite dog who unfortunately died. What irremediably separates him from the attractive star and actress Fàtima Flores are their respective pressing work commitments. “Despite the affection, respect and admiration we have for each other…”, regrets Milei, claiming the urgency of his commitments. The flood of comments that invaded the media is imaginable.
We are well beyond the theories of intertextuality.
More useful to define the Argentine situation down to its paradoxical aspects are the personalisms and divisions that weaken the opposition. On the Peronist side, seen by some observers as an invertebrate giant, at least three tendencies have always coexisted. On the left stands the semi-frozen leadership of Cristina Fernandez Kirchner, 70, protagonist of the last two decades of national politics. However, his age and above all the sterile vice-presidency in the government of Alberto Fernandez, who preceded Milei, have significantly tarnished his image. His son Maximo aspires to inherit power and prestige, opposed by the group that maintained the government of the province of Buenos Aires, by far the most populous and richest in the country, and by the moderate wing of the movement. In the short term, however, the balance of power within the right will be decisive: former president Mauricio Macri will have to decide whether to continue supporting Milei from the outside or distance himself in the hope of succeeding him sooner or later.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/cosa-combina-milei-in-argentina/ on Thu, 25 Apr 2024 05:43:03 +0000.