The conflict that is happening in the province of Misiones has all the ingredients to cause alarm in the national government: police strike, clashes in the governor’s house, teacher protests with violent incidents and, as a background, the suspicion that the adjustment on public sector salaries has already reached its limit of social tolerance.
However, 900 kilometers from that province, officials in the Pink House They insist on limiting the crisis as a purely provincial issue. A risky strategy, of course, because recent history has many examples of how an internal situation in a province can quickly generate a “contagion effect” spread to the rest of the country.
That is why national political attention is focused on how this problem is resolved, which puts Javier Milei faced with a complex dilemma: if he abandons the Governor Hugo Passalacquarisks the conflict escalating, spreading to other provinces and affecting stability at the national level; But if he intervenes with financial assistance, his attitude can be interpreted as an incentive for the protest to be applied in other provinces, under the implacable logic that “he who does not cry, does not suck.”
For now, the official position is clear: what happens in Misiones is the problem of the missionary government, and the only thing the Casa Rosada will do is guarantee the sending of law enforcement if the police strike causes a climate of insecurity.
“Teachers depend on the provincial government; therefore, the national government cannot interfere in that negotiation or in that conflict, which is between parties and the State is not one of them,” justified spokesperson Manuel Adorni when referring to the conflict. of Misiones, at the press conference on Friday. And he tried to convey tranquility by stating that “the province will rise to the occasion.”
Missions with a governor in difficult balance
The truth is that the images arriving from Misiones seem to refute that message: there were scuffles in front of the legislature building, and images of teachers recounting how they had been beaten were shown on national television. A teacher, in a struggle with the police, managed to snatch an officer’s cane and presented him as “a fighting trophy”, a gesture that inflamed enthusiasm in sectors of the left and Kirchnerism, who are enthusiastic about the possibility that Misiones is just the beginning of a popular resistance movement against Milei’s economic policy.
The governors with Javier Milei: since the inauguration, the relationship has fluctuated between conflict and negotiation for fiscal resources
Of course, it is not so easy for the opposition to make a simplistic political reading of the situation in the province. After all, Governor Passalacqua, whose origins in political activity are in the UCR, He was an ally of Sergio Massa in the last elections with his Front Renovador de la Concordia. But, once Milei took office, he showed himself as one of the dialogue-oriented governors, willing to cast their votes to approve the Bases law in exchange for a negotiation to improve the provincial fiscal situation.
In short, Passalacqua finds himself in the same ambiguous situation as most of his colleagues: seeking a balance between resistance to cutting resource transfers but, at the same time, with the need to find an agreement with Milei so that the provincial fund does not go into crisis.
How far can the fiscal adjustment go?
The missionary government did not go so far as to claim that the protest is motivated by political reasons, but it did make it clear that the salary situation is far from the worst, when compared to other provinces.
The Minister of Education of Misiones, Ramiro Aranda, which detailed that the government’s offer for teachers is $400,000 for a position as an undergraduate teacher for four hours, and $562,000 for a secondary school teacher with 21 hours. And he rejected the demands of the teaching union because he considered that they are not consistent with the national situation: “They are asking for 850,000 pesos; that amount does not exist in the country, no one in the witness position without seniority is paid, because no province is able to reach it. Above all, with the economic crisis at the national level and with the falls of “co-participation and collection that the provinces are having”.
The mere fact of having mentioned the word “co-participation” makes it clear what the vision of the provincial government is: basically, what generates social unrest is the Milei’s fiscal zeal, and the only thing the province can do is manage the crisis.
“We cannot mortgage the accounts of the province because that can bring other problems,” added the minister, who also, as a vindication of the responsibility of the missionary government, recalled that the payment of the half bonus for June, something that is still in doubt in other regions of the country – in fact, last December there were provinces that paid in installments.
Missions, far from the worst in the class
But the crisis is far from over. In addition to the teacher protest, negotiations with the police union also appear to be stalled, which considered the proposal for a 30% salary increase compared to a request for 100% “a mockery.”
And the worst of all is that the figures for missionary finances are relatively good in the general table of the provinces. Unlike what happened in other situations, such as that of La Rioja, which at the beginning of the year announced that it should resort to the issuance of a quasi-currency, Misiones does not appear as a typical case of a province with chronic problems of poor management..
The quasi-currency of La Rioja, a consequence of a provincial financial crisis aggravated by the lack of consensus with the national government
In that case, Milei had found a perfect rival to justify his crusade for fiscal discipline: the Governor Ricardo Quintela, who also faced a salary dispute with the police, had hired Lali Espósito for a provincial arts festival, a situation that Milei was in charge of transforming into a symbol of fiscal irresponsibility and the cultural battle to come. The president came out of that conflict better off than the governor, who shortly after announced a default on Rioja bonds – which earned him the accusation of a “recalcitrant and repeat defaulter” by the committee of creditors, which had already suffered the re-profiling of debt in 2021.
How bad are missionary finances? Although the year ended with a budget deficit of 2.8% of regional product (which left it in seventh place in the national ranking of those with the worst imbalance), it does not show as strong a dependence on the national government as other provinces.
In fact, it appears in the third of those that receive the lowest per capita transfers from the Nation. Its dependence on automatic tax sharing is 45% of total income, while what it received from discretionary transfers was 10%, according to the estimate made by the Mediterranean Foundation.
These are figures that contrast with cases such as La Rioja, Formosa, Jujuy and Santiago del Estero, where National assistance explains more than 75% of total income provincial.
And, strikingly, Misiones is among the districts with less dependence on public employment, It has only 49 provincial workers and only 55 public employees – adding provincial and national – per 1,000 inhabitants. This makes it the fourth province in the country with the lowest incidence of the state sector in the labor market. Within the provincial budget, the amount that Misiones allocates to the payment of salaries is below the national average of 53%.
Conflict in Misiones and Milei show generate echoes of Cristina’s dance
These numbers only show that, far from being a particular case of provincial mismanagement, the salary conflict in Misiones is more due to the situation of falling income caused by the crisis in the national economy. And, in principle, it seems more likely that a “contagion effect” will occur than that the conflict will be encapsulated within the province.
Milei has on hand recent examples of how this type of crisis can spread quickly. Who knows best is Cristina Kirchner, that throughout his management he has suffered several situations of this type. The most serious was in December 2013with a series of police crises and looting, which had its most dramatic expression in Tucumán, where there were deaths in violent incidents.
The worst thing for Cristina was that the most serious moment found her dancing in the Plaza de Mayo, in the middle of the celebrations for the 30 years of the return to democracy. It was a parallel that several noticed before Milei’s “show” at Luna Park, which was also held to coincide with the social unrest in Misiones.
Milei’s show at Luna Park coinciding with the Misiones crisis brought reminiscences of Cristina Kirchner dancing in the midst of police repression in Tucumán in 2013
On that occasion, Cristina had made errors of political calculation that turned against him, such as having ignored a police conflict in Córdoba, alleging that he had interference in provincial issues. Of course, at that time the Mediterranean province was governed by José Manuel de la Sota, a staunch adversary. But then the conflict spread and situations of looting occurred in other provinces, where national intervention was decided.
Always clinging to conspiratorial visions in the face of crisesCristina had hinted at a political organization of the protests. “The contagion effect only exists in mumps, chickenpox or rubella,” stated the then president.
But reality showed that this was not the case: it all started with the bad mood of the Buenos Aires police officers for receiving less increase than their colleagues from the Federal Police, and then that climate of protest spread throughout the country. The state and teachers were just negotiating jointly, and they adjusted their requests upwards to get closer to the percentages that the police had received.
History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes, said Mark Twain, in a phrase that political scientists like to quote. For Milei, The case of Misiones could be the warning of a dangerous rhyme.
