The chainsaw is the symbol of his politics: the Argentine president, Javier Milei, wants to reduce the Argentine State and its expenses to a minimum. With this motto he entered the electoral campaign, this is how he won the elections in November 2023 and this is how he proceeds now.
After 15 years of fiscal deficit and three state bankruptcies in 25 years, the majority of the Argentine electorate embraced the program that Milei had openly announced. But now, people’s support seems to be cracking. On Tuesday (23.4.2024), hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of Argentina to protest against the radical austerity policy.
Massive demonstrations
According to police reports, about 100,000 protesters gathered in the Argentine capital alone, while the University of Buenos Aires spoke of more than 500,000. As is often the case, the real number is likely to be somewhere in between the two figures.
There were also demonstrations in many other university cities in the country, such as Tucumán, Córdoba, Corrientes and Ushuaia. On the other side of the Atlantic, there were people who showed solidarity with the protesters by gathering in front of the Argentine consulate in Barcelona (Spain). Several media outlets said the recent protests are among the largest in the past 20 years.
Warning shot for Milei
The protests against the Government of Javier Milei have occurred practically since the beginning of his mandate, which began at the beginning of December 2023. The mobilizations that have taken place until this week have been “important, but, in some way, sectoral, the call was from a specific political sector,” Facundo Cruz, a political scientist at the University of Buenos Aires, told DW.
In January, for example, the CGT, the country’s largest union, called a general strike. The CGT is closely linked to the Peronist bloc “Unión por la Patria”. The largest opposition party has dominated Argentine politics for the past 20 years, with Cristina Fernández de Kirchner at the helm, among others, but this week, Cruz says, was different: “Tuesday’s march marks a difference from previous marches for two reasons: because of its massiveness and because of its transversality. It was a transversal mobilization where, without a doubt, there were Government voters in different parts of the country and citizens who, when consulted, approved of the Government’s management.”
Dispute over university funding
According to Cruz, the reason that the entire political spectrum participated in the mobilization is that the Government has left the budget for public universities at the level of the previous year. With inflation of 280 percent in the last twelve months, this measure represents a real cut of around 65 percent.
“For Argentine society, Argentina always differed from the rest of Latin America because social mobility was associated with public education. And that was a guarantee of social mobility,” Argentine political scientist Mariana Llanos, from the Institute of Latin American Studies, explains to DW. GIGA, based in Hamburg. “Argentines can take on many cuts, but education is a very sensitive issue.” For Llanos, Milei has scored an own goal by making these drastic cuts.
What is Milei’s popularity after five months in office?
The fact that many citizens, as Llanos says, are willing to make sacrifices to clean up the national budget and the economy is also reflected in Milei’s approval ratings: even after massive cuts and a wave of layoffs in the public sector, About 50 percent of Argentines remain in favor of the government’s ultra-liberal reformist course, although almost the remaining half also express their disapproval.
In polls, more than five percent of respondents have rarely expressed an undecided opinion about Milei. According to political scientist Cruz, this is a clear sign of the division of Argentine society.
Milei’s position in the legislature is fragile: of the 329 seats in the Argentine Congress, Milei’s party, “La Libertad Avanza”, only has 45 (14 percent). “Congress is divided between a more recalcitrant opposition and an opposition with which the president can dialogue,” says political scientist Mariana Llanos.
Will he be able to stay in office?
That is another reason why observers have been speculating, since he took office, about how long this unconventional politician will be able to remain in office. Facundo Cruz does not currently see anyone who is willing and able to assume Milei’s difficult legacy.
The current president has inherited rampant inflation and a high unemployment rate from his predecessors. Furthermore, according to Cruz, there is no consensus in the opposition to present a political counterproposal. As long as popular support remains as high as it has been until now, the expert does not believe that Milei can be removed from office in the near future.
Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of the American political magazine America’s Quarterly, has a similar vision of the current situation. However, he points out: “A president who is not a Peronist can never be safe. Especially when he cuts the budget in this way.” For Winter, the April 23 protests did not question Milei’s direction, but rather where the chainsaw should be applied. And where not.
For Mariana Llanos, the drastic cuts in the education sector are an important and, above all, avoidable political mistake, which could mark a turning point: “Milei is an intelligent person. Maybe he wants to correct that mistake in some way.”
(ms/ers)
