After more than 12 hours of debate and violent clashes near Parliament, the Argentine Senate voted on the omnibus law with which President Javier Milei wants to transform the economic and social model of the country of tango. The vote ended in a draw, with 36 votes in favor and the same number against, but Victoria Villarruel, Milei’s deputy who presides over the Senate, obviously voted in favor of the reform. Now the project returns to the Chamber to confirm the changes made yesterday, after an exhausting negotiation with the opposition dialogue, or with the elimination of Aerolíneas Argentinas, Correo Argentino and the public media from the list of state enterprises to be privatized. It should be a formality but in Argentina you can never tell. If finally approved, it will be Milei’s first law since he assumed the presidency on December 10th.
Milei celebrated on X «the historic general approval» in the Senate of the omnibus law. “Tonight is a triumph for the Argentine people and the first step towards recovering our greatness, having approved the most ambitious legislative reform of the last 40 years,” he wrote. The new law declares a public emergency in administrative, economic, financial and energy matters for a period of one year and authorizes the executive branch to assume special powers in these areas. Furthermore, it includes incentives for large investments for 30 years, facilities for the exploitation of natural resources and transfers of profits abroad.
In the 12 hours that the law was debated in the Senate, there were violent clashes between the police and demonstrators from various far-left organizations linked to Kirchnerism armed with stones, sticks, Molotov cocktails and chemical grenades, which President Milei’s office defined as terrorists, accusing them of wanting to “perpetrate a coup d’état”.
The objective of the violent men was to break into the Senate and when the police attempted to clear one of the avenues with water cannons and tear gas, a group of individuals with their faces covered began throwing cobblestones and Molotov cocktails. Once the break-in at the Senate House was foiled, the fighting continued a couple of blocks away. About thirty troublemakers were arrested.
For months Milei has been fighting to get this law approved against the fierce resistance of the Kirchnerist opposition, the sector of Peronism that has governed Argentina for much of the last 20 years, destroying its economy with fiscal policies resulting in double-digit deficits, an uncontrolled monetary expansion (the Central Bank here depends on the executive) and a corruption that would have led to the arrest of the former president Cristina Kirchner, were it not for her immunity as a senator.
