It's Tuesday evening. In the presidential office of the Casa Rosada, with all the pomp that comes with power in a very presidential country like Argentina, Javier Milei raises his eyebrows and drops the bombshell during his last interview of the year. If Congress does not approve the mega-decree by which it will change more than 300 laws without any discussion with anyone, it will call a plebiscite, a plebiscite. The people against the Congress. A classic of populism. “Explain to me why Congress is against something that is good for people. Because the people understood it well, right?” Milei, who now has a lot of support among the population, wants to use him to destroy every discrepancy and every opposing power. In case it wasn't clear, Milei concludes by calling everyone involved in the debate about a huge reform that will completely transform Argentina's entire economic system corrupt. “Those who like to debate so much, to discuss the comma, are looking for bribes.” [sobornos]“.
The next day, Milei sends an omnibus bill demanding that Congress give him full authority on the things that the Constitution says he cannot change by decree: tax policy, election laws, privatizations, fundamental rights – the norm obliges him to ask the government for permission, which she can refuse for any “gathering or demonstration” on the street with more than three people. Milei demands that they let him govern without congress, without countervailing power, without opposition.
The common thread of his vision is very clear: the President represents the people with his voter support of 56%, and the Congress is the caste. If something goes wrong – and higher inflation with Milei's first measures suggests that much will go wrong for millions of Argentines in the coming months – it will be Congress's fault. The truth is that Milei, as almost always after an election victory, enjoys broad popular support and wants to use this idyllic moment to crush any political, trade union or social opposition.
Traditional Argentine politics, entrenched in Congress and the provinces, convey a clear sense of fear. Milei threatens to attract “the people” to himself, and no one wants to withstand this wave. Some of these politicians and trade unionists trust that time will do its job and that “the people” will abandon Milei when they see the devastating impact of his actions on their daily lives. Argentina is in the middle of summer, many are on vacation, but the moment of truth will come in March when normal activity returns, trust those who are preparing the opposition to Milei.
The underlying problem is well studied and described in the book How Democracies Die (Ariel) by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, two Harvard professors. The text analyzes many cases of populism and legitimacy conflicts, such as the one that Milei addresses in Argentina, but there is one that is particularly similar, of course with some significant differences because any comparison is exaggerated: that of Peru. Alberto Fuijimori, like Milei, was a political outsider who founded a party in a year and managed to win the 1990 elections against none other than Mario Vargas Llosa, the Peruvian Nobel Prize winner. Even the characters look similar. Milei scored 30% in the first round and 56% in the second. Fujimori 29.9% and 62% in the second year 1990.
They both had the same problem: as in the United States, deputies are elected partly in midterm elections in which no one has voted before, and partly in the first round in which neither of them won. Therefore, in 1990, Fujimori only had 32 of the 180 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 14 of 62 in the Senate. Milei directly controls only 38 of Argentina's 257 deputies and seven of its 72 senators, although he can count on a few more thanks to the support of Mauricio Macri. It took Fujimori nine days to announce his ultra-liberal measures, which included severe devaluation, privatization, liberalization and severe impoverishment of Peruvians in order to control soaring inflation (2,775% in Peru at the time, 150% in Argentina before the Turn). Milei took five days. There was talk of Fujishock, and the word shock is used most often in Buenos Aires today.
The president gained enormous popular support and used it to act against Congress. Frightened and with a very worn-out image of politics, Peruvian MPs gave special powers to the very popular Fujimori, but this was not enough. There was one major distinguishing feature that fortunately did not exist in Argentina: Shining Path terrorism. Fujimori's crackdown on them made him even more popular and after months of blaming Congress for all the ills, he decided to shut it down in a self-coup in 1992. And no one could stop him until the year 2000. Previously, he was responsible for destroying the unions, weakening social protest and smashing the Peruvian political system, which has never been able to recover and still suffers from the extreme weakness of the parties. and a permanent instability that led Pope Francis to ask during his visit to Lima in 2018: What is happening in Peru that all the presidents end up in prison?
The question now is whether Milei wants to continue on this path of confrontation with Congress until he becomes a new Fujimori, or whether he will stop before then, or whether he will be stopped. Argentina and Peru are two very different countries due to their history, their social structures and their economic reality. In Peru, the unions were already weak when Fujimori arrived and ended them. In Argentina they are among the most powerful in the world. The games in Peru were already very close in 1990 – so there could actually be a meeting between two outsiders like Fujimori and Vargas Llosa in the second round. Peronism emerges from the elections wounded but still retains much strength and local power: it governs the vast province of Buenos Aires.
Furthermore, there are many more countervailing powers in Argentina, including some sections of the press, including the conservative one, who are asking a question that applies to Argentina, but also to those in Spain – ironically including Vargas Llosa himself – who blindly support Milei: What if Cristina Fernández de Kirchner had changed 300 laws with a single decree without consulting anyone? What would happen if Pedro Sánchez asked Congress for full authority to change, by decree and without a pandemic, the fundamental rights of protest, the electoral law or the controversial amnesty law? Both Fernández de Kirchner and Sánchez, like other political leaders, issued and issued many decrees. They insult her openly. But no one had turned the country around with a single decree that changed everything, without any consultation with unions, business people or affected sectors, nor had anyone asked for two years – extendable to four – of free elections to be able to govern without opposition.
Therefore, Argentina is unlikely to follow Peru's path as the countervailing powers are stronger. But the dialectic that Milei proposes is very similar to that of the first Fujimori, and both had great popular support to break any kind of opposition. The question is until when. Making predictions in Argentina always means being wrong, as Milei just demonstrated when he snuck into the Casa Rosada under the astonished gaze of the discredited traditional political class. But everything points to the litmus test coming in March, when summer comes to an end. Until then, prepare yourself for a permanent shock that does not even allow time to analyze the dimensions of the challenge of a man who always pays attention to his gestures and begins his mandate with a very clear gesture: he gave his first speech at the Street, He turned his back on Congress and not, as usual, in front of the MPs. We know how it begins. It remains to be seen how it ends.
Carlos E Cue He was a correspondent for EL PAÍS in Buenos Aires.
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