Thousands of Argentines have taken to the streets of Buenos Aires in recent days to protest against a massive deregulation bill from the new president.
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Fifteen days after coming to power, the new Argentine President Javier Milei is finding resistance. In addition to marches by unions and social organizations, more and more spontaneous demonstrations by Argentines are taking place against the measures announced by Milei. The latter wants to massively deregulate the country’s economy, with privatizations, layoffs in the public sector, a liberalization of prices and a devaluation of the currency.
In protest, Argentines go out onto their balconies or downstairs and simply make noise. In general, they hit a pan with a spatula or a spoon, a form of protest that began during the economic crisis of 2001. The empty pan was then a symbol of shortages. Since then, whenever people feel the need to express themselves spontaneously, they bang on their pots. And for a week, every day in different neighborhoods of the capital Buenos Aires, this repetitive metallic noise has resonated as a sign of discontent.
These protests may be surprising, given that the Argentines have just elected Javier Milei, an economist by training who claims to be an “anarcho-capitalist”. The new president was also very frank during his campaign and had promised a liberal revolution from the start. Among the Argentines in the streets, there are of course those who did not vote for him. But there were also those who thought he wasn’t going to do everything he said he would during the campaign. Finally, others find that the president is going too fast and above all going too far.
Rent deregulation and free sale of medicines
In addition to these protests, the week was particularly intense on the political level, since Javier Mirei signed an emergency decree which modifies 300 laws. On Wednesday, December 27, he tabled a 350-page bill in Parliament with two things in parallel. On the one hand, the emergency decree which will come into force on Friday December 29, pending the final decision of Parliament. The benefit of an emergency decree for the president is that it is first implemented, and then debated. Among the measures in this text: the price of rents set freely by owners, the sale of medicines in any business without the obligatory presence of a pharmacist or even the free purchase of land.
And on the other side there is this “mega-bill”, as it is nicknamed in Argentina, with 664 articles to deal with. To do this, Javier Milei summoned Parliament into an extraordinary session to debate this text which aims to completely deregulate the economy and transform the structure of the State. The project provides for example the restriction of the right to strike, the extension of self-defense, in particular in favor of the police, or the privatization of 41 public companies.
These shock measures therefore outrage some Argentines. But a large part of the inhabitants still continue to support Milei who, on the strength of his electoral triumph with 11 points more than his rival, wasted no time in implementing all these deregulations.