Stella Calloni
Correspondent
The newspaper La Jornada
Thursday, August 22, 2024, p. 31
Buenos Aires. The government of President Javier Milei, of the ultra-right La Libertad Avanza (LLA), experienced the toughest days of its eight months in office, amid a strong confrontation between the president and Vice President Victoria Villarruel, in addition to disputes within the ruling party, where they shouted at each other, and the rejection by the Chamber of Deputies of a decree to grant one hundred billion pesos (more than 100 million dollars) for reserved expenses in the new State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE).
To achieve a vote of 156 votes against 50 and six abstentions, they joined together with Peronists from the Unión por la Patria bench, members of the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and the Propuesta Republicana (PRO), as well as other minor blocks, including the Frente de Izquierda, which led to an unexpected result for Milei.
The same thing happened at the end of last week with another of his decrees, on the subject of university financing, the general situation of teachers and salaries that are among the lowest in existence, who protested in the streets yesterday and a large march is being prepared for September 7.
Milei threatened to veto everything that is not approved, but he is increasingly isolated. First of all, LLA was not and is not a political party and in a second round of elections last November it would have lost, as it did in the first, if it had not associated itself, at the last moment, with the right-wing former president Mauricio Macri, of Juntos por el Cambio, who attracted the radical vote.
There are currently fractures within both the PRO and the Radical Party. An agreement with Peronism led to the election of Martín Losteau, president of the UCR, to head the bicameral intelligence committee that Milei and the former conservative president Mauricio Macri were trying to win, since he is key to controlling the SIDE.
Meanwhile, the Minister of Human Capital, Sandra Pettovello, who is in charge of several secretariats that were ministries, including Social Development and Culture, has several open cases; one for having hidden five tons of food left by the previous government to help soup kitchens and low-income families. She disobeyed court orders and her resignation is demanded.
When the federal police sent by the court opened the warehouse where the food was stored, much of which could expire, they found thousands of packets of yerba mate that had been left unusable due to neglect and filth.
The government has presented its project for labour reform, which will affect the entire labour movement, and the rank and file have already proposed to strike, while the Minister of Defence, Luis Petri, defended that the armed forces be incorporated into internal security, which violates the Constitution. In this case, both Milei and her sister, Karina, secretary of the presidency, have supplanted Villarruel, in a field in which she moves as the granddaughter and daughter of military officers that she is.
It is known that the military would not be in favor of being removed from their task of national defense to be placed under the aegis of the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, who was criticized by the opposition when she said that the deputies were They have to take charge against drug trafficking or the possibility of a terrorist attack.
Another crisis in the political coalitions is caused by the attempt to free those detained for crimes against humanity, which motivated the complaint of the deputy Lourdes Arrieta, of LLA, who claimed that the head of the ruling party bloc of deputies, Martín Menem, knew of the visit of six legislators to the prison to meet with the greatest symbols of state terrorism during the last dictatorship.
Two days ago, the Peronist march was sung at several football matches. This was due to Milei’s decision that clubs should become public limited companies to be sold to foreign capital.