Argentina | Second general strike against an imperturbable and self-satisfied Javier Milei

(Buenos Aires) A ​​slow day, but not at a standstill. Argentina saw its second general strike on Thursday in barely five months of the Javier Milei government, a sign that the street is significantly raising its voice in the face of the ultraliberal president, still upholding his austerity program, with initial ambivalent results.

No trains or metro, few buses, schools and banks closed… the capital Buenos Aires sounded hollow on Thursday, without a good part of the 3 million people who pass through there every day. But for all that, with a large number of shops and restaurants open, and traffic resembling a weekend or public holiday… which was not the case in Argentina on this Ascension Day.

Some 400 flights were canceled, affecting 70,000 passengers, according to the Latin American Air Transport Association. But low-cost airlines operated from Buenos Aires airport.

“The strike has no strength,” claimed Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who denounced the stones being thrown at buses that were circulating, an “admission of weakness” according to her. His Transport counterpart affirmed that the public transport service was operating at 40%.

The strike “against a brutal adjustment, in defense of labor rights, union rights, and a decent salary”, launched by several unions seemed in any case much more followed than that of January 24 (12 hours only), a semi-failure mocked by the government as the “fastest strike in history”, announced in December, 18 days after Milei’s inauguration.

This time again, the presidency denounced a “strictly political” strike by unions which go “against what people voted for five months ago”. “This government has had more strikes than reforms, it’s quite extravagant,” quipped the presidential spokesperson.

Support still strong

But the political impact should prove less than the major marches in defense of the university on April 24 (one million demonstrators across the country), the strongest mobilization hostile to Milei to date, and “a lesson for him: the first time he hit a wall in public opinion, because what was at stake was a collective, transversal good,” estimates political scientist Gabriel Vommaro.

But “for this reason, it should not be overinterpreted,” the analyst hastens to add. Because, elected as a “providential man who arrived to resolve problems that the previous elites had left lying around”, Milei “retains in public opinion cores of support unscathed, or at least fairly solid”.

In fact, despite a slight shift in April, several recent polls see Milei oscillating between 45 and 50% positive image – he was elected with 56%.

A form of spectacular stability for a ruler who inflicted in a few months, between devaluation, freed prices, “cut-off” spending and public aid, “the greatest adjustment in the history of humanity”, as the anarcho-capitalist likes to remind people.

In addition, the corrosive Milei, “without changing his personality and his aggressive speech”, is undergoing “a political apprenticeship”, considers Rosendo Fraga, political scientist at the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.

As such, the adoption at the end of April (at least in the Lower House) of its set of deregulatory reforms, an amended, narrowed, planed project, is “important”: it shows a Milei “more flexible in practice, relaxing the “ideology”, and who “can articulate a coalition to govern, despite its weak strength” of 37 deputies out of 257.

What plan after the savings?

Depending on whether they focus on the balance of accounts, the reduction in country risk, or on the micro-social impact, job losses, the opposition and the government throw clues in each other’s faces.

Inflation decelerating from 25% for December alone to 9% predicted for April, or worrying recession with -3.2% decline in activity over one year. “Historic feat” (dixit Milei) of a budget with a surplus in the first quarter not seen since 2008, or a dark record of poverty (41.7% officially) at levels not seen since 2006.

“Useless sacrifice,” denounces former president Cristina Kirchner. “Our plan is working,” Milei trumpets. But economists, including liberals, are worried about “what’s next”.

“Milei has (…) only one variable in mind: inflation,” said Carlos Rodriguez, once close to the new president. “The adjustment plan is simply to pay nothing, with these first months a reduction in costs in all sectors.” But, he said, “I don’t see a plan.”