Argentine Senate debates two reforms with which President Milei seeks governability

The Argentine Senate began debating on Wednesday two projects with economic reformsadministrative and tax considered key to ensuring the governability of libertarian President Javier Milei, while unions, social movements and human rights organizations expressed their rejection in the vicinity of Congress.

The upper house, where the ruling party La Libertad Avanza only has seven of the 72 senators, will debate the project of the so-called Bases Law and another with tax reforms that at the end of April They got the green light in the Chamber of Deputies and that, if approved, they must return to that room for their final vote since they have been subjected to different modifications agreed upon between the ruling party and dialogue-oriented opponents in order for them to make way.

Milei has been fighting to get her first laws since came to power six months ago in which it has encountered resistance above all from Kirchnerism—the sector of Peronism that governed much of the last 20 years and is the leading force in both chambers—and from leftist parties opposed to the strong adjustment that has been carried out as well as the reforms that seek to end decades of State intervention in the economy.

“The most important thing is for Milei to demonstrate that he can pass laws in Congress because, up to this point, the fact that he has not been able to pass a law is a symptom of great political weakness,” Lucas Romero, director of Synopsis, told The Associated Press. Consultants.

In this regard, he indicated that the leader of La Libertad Avanza “may have the best economic ideas, he can leave Argentina and talk to businessmen to bring them to invest, but they are going to ask him ‘What capacity for government do you have beyond of your ideas?’ And that’s where Milei has not been able to demonstrate that he has the capacity control of the political process to achieve its economic policy objectives.

The government hopes that the initiatives will go ahead after in February it had to withdraw from Congress another initiative that included more far-reaching reforms and was strongly questioned. For this reason, he had to agree on changes with circumstantial political allies to achieve their acceptance in the vote in the Chamber of Deputies in April and in view of the debate that has now opened in the Senate.

But both projects continue to face strong resistance from the toughest opponents who oppose in particular a labor reform that, they maintain, would violate workers’ rights, the privatization of state companies such as Aerolíneas Argentinas and tax reforms that would benefit large companies. companies.

The debate in the upper house promises to be long since the initiatives must be voted on first in general and then article by article.

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