Stories that caught our eye: March 14 to 21

GREEN LIGHT FOR IMF

Congress on Wednesday approved President Javier Milei’s DNU emergency decree authorising his government to seek a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) by a 129-108 vote with six abstentions following a ferocious debate with Kirchnerite deputies. The 39 libertarian deputies were joined by 85 centrists. 13 inland Peronists and independents. The previous day the decree cleared the Bicameral Commission at the price of making maverick government backbencher and former lower house caucus chief Oscar Zago its chairman to replace Senator Juan Carlos Pagotto (La Libertad Avanza-La Rioja), challenged by Kirchnerite committee members. Sketchy on numbers, the decree does not say much beyond proclaiming the intention of improving the quality of Central Bank assets by buying back Treasury bonds of dubious value. The extended fund facility sought with the IMF is to be repaid in 10 years with a grace period of 54 months. 

PEACEFUL PENSION PROTEST

While deputies were debating inside Congress the emergency decree to authorise an agreement with the IMF, the weekly pension protest outside Congress was renewed but without the  serious incidents traumatising the previous demonstration on March 12. Most of the related news referred either to that violent episode or anticipation of its repetition. An 87-year-old pensioner injured in the previous protest is suing Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, who is in turn denouncing the organisers of the march, offering rewards of up to 10 million pesos for their identification. On Wednesday morning there were notices and loudspeakers in railway stations blaring: "The police will repress every attack on the Republic" while early in the day there were already 900 policemen deployed around Congress, rising to over 2,000 later in the day, including Border and Coast Guards and Federal Police officers. The pensioners and their sympathisers reject a retirement benefit floor of 280,000 pesos as insufficient.

CGT CALL GENERAL STRIKE

The CGT labour umbrella last Thursday called its third general strike against the Javier Milei administration for April 10 with UTA bus-drivers confirming their adhesion. The pension protests are believed to have accelerated this decision. The government still has almost three weeks to head it off.

CITY CANDIDACIES

Former two-term City mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta last Monday confirmed that he would be running for the City legislature, harshly criticising current incumbent Jorge Macri’s handling of City Hall as leaving the metropolis “dirtier and less safe with no public works and no direction,” summing up his motivation as “I return because [the city] smells of piss.” Rodríguez Larreta described his relationship with his mayoral predecessor and former mentor ex-president Mauricio Macri as “very distant” while being ambiguous about his relationship with the PRO centre-right party founded by Macri, saying: “I continue to sustain the values with which we founded PRO.” Rodríguez Larreta was not the only politician to toss his hat into the municipal ring last week – the following day Peronist deputy Leandro Santoro, the 2023 mayoral runner-up, also declared his candidacy. The first move of Santoro, who entered politics as a Radical, was to change the “Unión por la Patria” label to “Es Ahora Buenos Aires,” leaving open the question of allies for his front. The deadline for alliances was midnight Wednesday with PRO, the Radicals and La Libertad Avanza all going their separate ways.

U-TURN ON THE U(KRAINE)-TURN

President Javier Milei last Monday held a “warm” telephone conversation with his Ukrainian colleague Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss the bilateral relationship and the peace process between Ukraine and Russia, official sources confirmed. Milei also thanked Zelenskyy for expressing solidarity over the Bahía Blanca tragedy. Their chat follows a U-turn in Argentine support for Ukraine in abstaining from a United Nations resolution calling on Russia to “to immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all its military forces” from Ukrainian territory, a change of course in line with United States President Donald Trump who rejected the UN resolution outright, earlier calling Zelenskyy a “dictator.”

GANGING UP ON KICILLOF

The Milei siblings last Monday received the senior PRO deputies Diego Santilli and Cristian Ritondo in the Casa Rosada to discuss an electoral alliance to challenge Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof. Presidential Spokesperson Manuel Adorni spelled out the purpose of the meeting in his X account: “We are concentrating on eradicating populism from our country and Buenos Aires Province and to achieve that we are advancing in working jointly to integrate our proposals and give the province’s citizens a better future. Unfortunately [deputy] José Luis Espert could not be present due to the death of his mother.” Following the meeting Ritondo denied any merger, defining it as a working alliance geared to the PASO primaries in the province, scheduled for July 13 but with every prospect of suspension. The PRO caucus chief also said that the priority was to coordinate ideas with the trickier issue of the lists of candidates the last in line. Ritondo insisted that ex-president  Mauricio Macri had been “informed” of the meeting and fully approved. Santilli was more explicit about working towards an “integration” of the two parties. 

PASO GOING NOWHERE FAST?

Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof last weekend convoked the PASO (Primarias, Abiertas, Simultáneas y Obligatorias) primary for this year’s midterms, setting a date of July 13, while at the same time seeking to suspend them as soon as possible, urgently seeking the suspension of PASO from the provincial legislature as well as possibly seeking to detach provincial voting from the national midterm date of October 22.

TRAFFIC LAW ENTERS THIS CENTURY

A modernised version of the Traffic Law dating back to the last century, the joint work of the Deregulation & State Transformation Ministry and the Transport Department under the Economy Ministry, was published in the Official Gazette last Tuesday as Decree 196/2025. Various key components of travel such as driving licences (with simplified renewal procedures) and highway tolls (to permit free flow national motorways by mid-2027) now go digital among other deregulatory innovations. New cars will not require a technical overhaul for the first five years with inspection only becoming annual after 10 years. 

PALESTINIANS TO LOSE THEIR STREET?

Yamil Santoro, who heads the conservative Republicanos Unidos caucus in the City Legislature, chose last Monday’s anniversary of the 1992 destruction of the Israeli Embassy to reaffirm his bill to rename the Almagro neighbourhood street Estado de Palestina “Familia Bibas” in honour of the Israeli family of Argentine origin who died as hostages in the Gaza Strip or “7 de octubre de 2023,” marking the date when they were taken from their home by Hamas assailants, insisting that their vicious attack on behalf of a Palestinian state meant that the street should not retain its current name. Santoro also defended the Israeli response to that attack, which has claimed an estimated 50,000 Palestinian lives. He further condemned both police brutality and violent hooligans accompanying the March 12 pension protest, saying that the latter should be considered “terrorist organisations.” The conservative leader expressed support for libertarian economic policies but deplored President Javier Milei’s U-turn over Ukraine.

BLOOPER

Libertarian leader Francisco Oneto, the running-mate of 2023 Buenos Aires Province gubernatorial candidate Carolina Píparo, raised eyebrows and social network comment on Monday when he said that if he were City Mayor, he would decree a state of “siege,” overlooking that this is an exclusively presidential prerogative. Oneto also defended Security Minister Patricia Bullrich’s crackdown on the March 12 pension protest outside Congress. In the previous week another libertarian figure came under fire when deputy Martín Soria (Unión por la Patria-Río Negro) accused his fellow-deputy Lorena Villaverde (La Libertad Avanza-Río Negro) of having been arrested for cocaine-trafficking in the United States.