Violent protests in Argentina as Milei squeezes through shock therapy reforms

Inside the congress, senators were debating what remains of Milei’s flagship reform bill – which was rejected in its original form and approved with major changes by the lower house in April.

The whittled-down bill has 238 articles – slimmed from an initial 600-plus.

The measures include declaring a one-year state of economic emergency, allowing Milei to disband federal agencies, and privatising a dozen public companies including state-owned carrier Aerolineas Argentina.

Other measures deal with reducing access to minimum retirement allowances and weakening labour protections – slammed by Left-wing opponents as a licence to sack workers.

Prior to the bill’s preliminary senate approval, opposition lawmakers took to the floor claiming it would reverse decades of progress.

Mariano Recalde, opposition senator, said the labour reforms, in particular, “take us back to the last century when the employee had no labour rights.”

The measure is opposed by social organisations, leftist political parties, retirees, teachers and labour unions.

Fabio Nunez, a 55-year-old lawyer among the protesters, said: “We cannot believe that in Argentina we are discussing a law that will put us back 100 years.”

Minority in congress

Milei’s party is in the minority in both houses of congress, which he has described as a “nest of rats,” and the president has not had any legislation passed since taking office last December.

The self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” won the country’s November elections vowing to take a chainsaw to public spending and eliminate the budget deficit.

By decree, he has halved the cabinet, slashed 50,000 public jobs, suspended new public works contracts and ripped away fuel and transport subsidies even as wage-earners lost a fifth of their purchasing power and annual inflation approached 300 percent.

Luis Caputo, Argentina’s economy minister, insisted on Tuesday that the bill is “an accelerator, an enabler of economic recovery.”

The debate is taking place with the economy mired in recession, amid a slump in construction, manufacturing and consumption.