Stories that caught our eye: August 16 to 23

CONGRESS REJECTS SPOOK EXTRAS

In a severe defeat for the government, Congress last Wednesday knocked back Decree 256/2024 giving a SIDE intelligence an increment of over 100 billion pesos. The move was rejected by a 156-52 vote with six abstentions thanks to a broad spectrum of opposition support including PRO centre-right deputies who had never previously voted against the libertarian government, heeding the instructions of ex-president Mauricio Macri. Security Minister Patricia Bullrich was critical of her party colleagues, saying: “They have chosen to place themselves on the side of the mafias.” For final repeal the decree still awaits rejection by the Senate, which is expected to be automatic. On the previous day the government had already suffered a setback when the bicameral commission monitoring the intelligence service fell under hostile leadership with Senator Martín Lousteau (UCR-City) tapping Kirchnerite support to take full advantage of Bullrich and presidential advisor Santiago Caputo being at loggerheads over the government nominee.

SENATE PAY UP (THEN NOT)

After sustained pushback during the week, the Senate on Thursday afternoon rolled back its pay increase to a monthly nine million pesos from earlier in the week, freezing their remuneration at seven million pesos for the rest of the year. President Javier Milei had called the hike a “betrayal of the Argentine people” even though the new pay levels had been the automatic consequence of collective bargaining for the legislative branch as a whole rather than a senatorial initiative. Later that afternoon the Senate also approved a bill giving pensioners full compensation for January inflation, which President Milei immediately pledged to veto.

LIJO OFF AND CREEPING

Federal judge Ariel Lijo made his first formal appearance in his quest for a Supreme Court bench in the Senate last Wednesday and did not impress. There were no clear signals from Kirchnerism, which is widely believed to be negotiating with the government – their caucus leader José Mayans made no direct comment on Lijo but attacked the Supreme Court as a whole as “abusing its power … and violating the Constitution.” Some PRO and Radical senators and even a libertarian, Franciso Paoltroni (La Libertad Avanza-Formosa), harshly questioned Lijo as soft on corruption while other senators made a case for gender equality, calling for a female candidacy. On Tuesday Vice-President Victoria Villarruel had already advanced the opinion that Lijo “lacked rectitude and honesty.”

ALBERTO SAGA CONTINUES

The focus within the various scandals afflicting ex-president Alberto Fernández shifted slightly away from gender violence against his former partner back to the corruption case originally placing him in the spotlight when Decree 823/2021 (obliging all state agency insurance contracts to be made with Nación Seguros SA alongside juicy commissions for middlemen brokers including presidential cronies) was repealed by Decree 747/2024, published in the Official Gazette last Wednesday. In the process the new decree removed any obligation of state agencies to contract public companies, an initiative attributed to Deregulation & State Transformation Minister Federico Sturzenegger. Already before last weekend the prosecutor Carlos Rívolo had presented a writ to federal judge Julián Ercolini calling for the ex-president’s mobile telephone to be analysed in the context of the Nación Seguros case as well as for the alleged gender violence against Fabiola Yañez (who remained in Spain last week from where she advanced what she considered to be new evidence and named more witnesses). The previous day Fernández made a formal request photos and videos taken from his mobile telephone not be published in the name of “the protection of his right to privacy and the integrity of his children’s rights” since they violated his honour as an individual, as well as asking for his telephone back. The “right to intimacy, even of celebrities” was superior to the freedom of expression and the press, he argued, also pointing to the possible use of artificial intelligence to produce the “false and malicious images.”

UNIVERSITY STRIKE 

All the country’s 61 universities closed down last Tuesday and Wednesday with almost total adhesion to the 48-hour strike from lecturers and non-academic staff alike, scorning the Human Capital Ministry offer of a three-percent pay increase this month and two percent in September as way behind inflation with a wage erosion of over 50 percent. Trade unionists are planning a federal march for September if no agreement is reached. Strike action began on August 12 with a 24-hour stoppage.

FLIGHTS SNARLED BY PROTESTS

Flights out of Aeroparque Jorge Newbery were seriously delayed last Monday by the three-hour assemblies held by the aviation unions when not cancelled altogether as the result of a severe domino effect. The protest headed by APLA trade union (pilots) was joined by APA (ground workers) and UPSA (senior staff), all pressing for wage recovery. There were a total of 28 cancellations, 16 by Aerolíneas Argentinas and 12 by Flybondi, affecting some 5,000 passengers. On Thursday it was the turn of Ezeiza International Airport to be the scene of a three-hour assembly in the evening, affecting midnight departures. On Monday Flybondi issued a communiqué describing “the deregulation and modernisation of the aviation system in Argentina as necessary against these coercive practices which end up harming all airline passengers alien to the conflict.”

HOSTILE RULING

The Court of the District of Columbia in the United States capital of Washington last Tuesday upheld a 2019 ruling by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (CIADI in its Spanish acronym) regarding the irregular nationalisation of Aerolíneas Argentinas, sentencing Argentina to pay US$340 million to the hedge fund Titan Consortium, which had bought up the legal rights originally belonging to the expropriated Spanish group Marsans. Despite the ruling, Titan may not confiscate Aerolíneas aircraft in lieu of payment because their lawsuit was against the Argentine state, not the airline.

RETURN OF JONES HUALA

Good news and bad news for Mapuche militant leader Facundo Jones Huala last Monday – the government of Gabriel Boric released him from prison after Chile’s Supreme Court ruled that he had already served his time for an arson conviction two months ago but ordered his immediate deportation from the country, not to return for 20 years, sending him across the Andes. Prior to his release Jones Huala had been on a hunger strike for over seven weeks, during which period he received the distressing news of the suicide of his brother Fausto at the start of this month.

CHACO FEMICIDE RULING

Emerenciano Sena and Marcela Acuña will not go on trial as co-authors of the femicide of Cecilia Strzyzowski last year but as “necessary participants” with their son César Sena, the victim’s husband, considered the sole material author of the crime, a Resistencia appeals court ruled on Tuesday, thus upholding the decision of a lower instance last April. Four other people are behind bars for covering up the crime. The picket leader and his wife could still nevertheless be facing life sentences.

INFLUENTIAL ‘GORDO DAN’ 

This year’s edition of the Martín Fierro Digital prize ceremony served to formally identify the libertarian influencer “Gordo Dan” as Daniel Parisini of Santiago del Estero when it awarded him a statuette for running the “Most Influential X Account.” In his acceptance speech, the fanatical supporter of President Javier Milei nevertheless ironically dedicated his prize to ex-president Alberto Fernández for “having destroyed Kirchnerism” while also saying that his award would not have been possible without the latter.

FATHER GRASSI TO STAY BEHIND BARS

Following a two-hour hearing, a Morón court last Thursday unanimously denied Father Julio César Grassi release from prison until his sentence for child abuse ends in May, 2028. The lawyer Juan Pablo Gallego not only called for Grassi to stay in prison but also to be unfrocked and excommunicated from the Church, adding that his victims “are scared of him.” 

NO MPOX FOR NOW

Health authorities escaped a potential mpox outbreak this week. A cargo ship travelling from Brazil was placed under isolation at the port of San Lorenzo amid suspicions a crew-member had the infectious virus. However, he later tested positive for chickenpox. The number of crew on board was not reported by the authorities.