No train, no bus, no metro for twenty-four hours: the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, should ring hollow on Thursday, May 9, without a large part of the 3 million people who pass through it every day, the majority by public transport . Some 400 flights will be canceled, affecting 70,000 passengers, according to the Latin American Air Transport Association.
After five months of governance by President Javier Milei, marked by the launch of an austerity program, the second general strike “against a brutal adjustment, in defense of labor and union rights, and for a dignified salary”, launched by several unions, including the powerful Peronist CGT, promises to be followed. Much more than that of January 24 (twelve hours only), a semi-failure mocked by the government as the strike “the fastest in history” because announced in December 2023, eighteen days after the inauguration of Mr. Milei.
This time again, the Argentine presidency denounces a strike “strictly political” and unions “breaking records for speed and number of strikes”facing a government “barely took office”. Unions that will “against what people voted for five months ago”, she adds.
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The political impact, however, could be less than that of the major marches in defense of the university on April 24 (one million demonstrators across the country), the strongest mobilization hostile to Mr. 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 “a providential man who arrived to resolve problems that the previous elites had left lying around”Mr. Milei “retains unscathed, or at least fairly solid, cores of support in public opinion”.
An image that remains positive
In fact, despite a slight shift in April, several recent polls see Mr. Milei oscillating between 45% and 50% positive image – he was elected with 56% of the votes cast. A form of spectacular stability for a leader who has inflicted, in a few months, between devaluation, freed prices, spending and public aid “cut off”, “the greatest adjustment in human history”as he likes to say.
In addition, “without changing his personality and his aggressive speech”Mr. Milei is living “a political apprenticeship”considers Rosendo Fraga, political scientist from the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences.
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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 president “more flexible in practice, softening ideology”and that “can articulate a coalition to govern, despite its weak strength” of thirty-seven deputies out of 257.
Concerns about “post-Milei”
Decelerating inflation (from 25% for the month of December 2023 alone to 9% predicted for April) or worrying recession, with − 3.2% decline in activity over one year? “Historic feat”says the Argentine president, a budget with a surplus in the first quarter, unprecedented since 2008, or a dark record of poverty (41.7% officially), at levels we have not seen since 2006?
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Depending on whether they focus on the balance of accounts, the reduction in “country risk”, or on the microsocial impact, job losses, the opposition and government throw clues at each other: “Useless sacrifice of the people”denounces former president Cristina Kirchner. “Our plan is working”trumpets Mr. Milei.
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But economists, including liberals, are concerned about “after”. “Milei has (…) only one variable in mind: inflationestimates Carlos Rodriguez, economist, once close to the new president. The adjustment plan is simply to pay nothing, with, in these first months, a reduction in costs in all sectors. But I don’t see a plan. »
Beyond the strike, it is difficult to predict whether it is the recovery or the fed up which will be felt first. “The limit to adjustment is imposed by those who are adjusted and their capacity for resistance”concedes Carlos Heller, a former banker and opposition MP.
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