Stories that caught our eye: October 18 to 25

 

WHEN I’M 54

President Javier Milei turned 54 on Tuesday in a long working day which nevertheless found room for various festivities: a largely congratulatory abbreviated Cabinet meeting – with all ministers present except Luis Caputo (Economy) and Mariano Cúneo Libarona (Justice) away abroad – in the morning, a parade of the Mounted Grenadiers wishing a lachrymose President “Happy Birthday” and an evening party with almost 50 guests, including his latest flame, a scarlet-clad Amalia ‘Yuyito’ González. But not all were well-wishers – while greeting the crowd from the balcony of Government House, Milei was insulted by students protesting his veto of extra university spending in Plaza de Mayo. On the eve of his birthday Milei hosted four governors who had helped to uphold his university veto – Salta’s Gustavo Sáenz, Catamarca’s Raúl Jalil, Tucumán’s Osvaldo Jaldo and Hugo Passalacqua of Misiones – to a dinner in Olivos presidential residence (for which they did not have to pay, unlike the September 17 dinner for the 87 “hero” deputies who had defended his veto of reinforced pension updating.)

 

INTO MORE FUNDS

Flushed with being awarded the apparent prize of “Finance Minister of the Year” by LatinFinance publication on Wednesday, Economy Minister Luis Caputo confirmed from Washington that negotiations are underway towards a new agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) including “fresh funds,” although he added “it will take time.” At least one point which these negotiations will need to resolve is next year’s inflation with the IMF sticking to its forecast of 45 percent while the 2025 Budget is less than half that figure at 18 percent. Caputo, who met with the Fund’s number one and number two, Kristalina Georgieva and Gita Gopinath while in the United States, received his prize affirming: “There is no doubt in our minds that this time we’ll become the freest country in the world and the fastest-growing economy in the next few years” while adding that fiscal stability, a halt to money-printing and control of inflation were not promises but concrete facts.

 

LION OUT TO DEVOUR CRISTINA

President Javier Milei raised a storm last Sunday when he said that he would like to put "the last nail in the coffin of Kirchnerism with Cristina Kirchner inside." A Kirchnerism still mourning the death of former Health minister Ginés González García of cancer at the age of 79 just before last weekend strongly criticised his statements, accompanied by virtually every strand of Peronism. "How many times must we repudiate the hatred and violence of Milei’s words?" tweeted Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof, describing the statement as "completely incompatible with democracy." Various critics referred to the attempted assassination of the ex-president in September 2022. The lady herself said that Milei must be "nervous and aggressive … to keep repeating idiocies" with no idea how to run the country, throwing in her critique of economic policy. "Although they might kill me … your government is a failure and you as a President are an embarrassment," was her parting shot at Milei. On Thursday Fernández de  Kirchner joined Kicillof, with whom she is locked in a latent battle for the Peronist leadership, at an Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo event that also celebrated Estela Barnes de Carlotto’s 94th birthday.

 

MILEI VERSUS THE BONELLIS

Bárbara Bonelli, the daughter of prestigious television (Todo Noticias) and press (Clarín) journalist Marcelo Bonelli, sprang to the family’s defence last Monday night. Her father had incurred the presidential disfavour with a column assuring that Mario Russo’s exit from the Health Ministry had been linked to the complaints of Pope Francis about corruption in the current libertarian administration, dismissed as "bare-faced lies" by President Javier Milei, who then added Bárbara to his targets by accusing her of being in league with Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) Senator Martín Lousteau in particular and the "political caste" in general on the basis of a photo showing her with the Radical party chairman. Bárbara Bonelli, a former Chevening scholar at University College London, has been assistant City ombudsman since January 2019, preceded by 15 months as parliamentary secretary to Lousteau’s Evolución Radical caucus in Congress.

 

RADICAL SPLIT

On Thursday the increasingly fractious Radical lower caucus broke up with the walkout of a dozen deputies headed by Facundo Manes, disgusted with their party’s proximity to the Javier Milei administration, leaving the mainstream caucus headed by Rodrigo de Loredo with only 21 deputies. The dissident dozen have named their grouping “true Radicalism.” On the same day six mainstream Radical deputies joined La Libertad Avanza and PRO colleagues and leading government figures to discuss the 2025 Budget with educational spending a hot issue.

 

CHILD PROTECTION UNDERFUNDED

Childhood, Family and Adolescence Secretary Yanina Nano Lembo told the lower house Budget Committee on Wednesday that next year’s funding for child protection under last year’s ‘Ley Lucio’ would “slightly top four trillion pesos” or only 43 percent more than the current sum, considering it to be “an ideological policy.” The so-called ‘Ley Lucio’ – which establishes measures for the prevention and detection of violence against children and was unanimously approved by all 228 deputies present but still awaits Senate approval – is named after five-year-old Lucio Dupuy, battered to death by his mother Magdalena Espósito Valenti and her partner Abigail Páez in the La Pampa provincial capital of Santa Rosa in November, 2021, one of the most horrific infanticides ever. Other budget cuts were challenged by deputies, including the situation at the Garrahan paediatric hospital. The Human Capital Ministry official responded that the poverty figures are “painful” and “cannot be ignored” but affirmed that they were “the product of decades of unsuitable economic policies.”

 

AFIP RENAMED AND REVAMPED

The government on Monday announced the dissolution of AFIP (Administración Federal de Ingresos Públicos) tax bureau and its replacement with ARCA (Agencia de Recaudación y Control Aduanero), in the process slashing the payroll by over a third (cutting senior authorities by 45 percent with their pay capped at four million pesos and the lower echelons by 31 percent) with estimated annual savings of 6.4 billion pesos. All the 3,155 employees irregularly contracted during the 2019-23 Kirchnerite government, or some 15 percent of AFIP staff, are to be purged. The corresponding trade unions responded by announcing strike measures. AFIP chief Florencia Misrahi will remain at the head of ARCA.

 

SUNDRY REFORMS

The government kept tweaking away at existing regulations last week on various fronts. On Monday presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni announced that ARSAT and ENACOM state telecommunications companies would be stripped of 100 MHz of the 5G spectrum, which would be put out to a new tender. The Aviation Code was amended to boost operational safety in line with international norms via DNU emergency decree 941/2024 published on Tuesday in the Official Gazette. Decree 941 was then followed by Decree 942 amending various articles of the General Law for the Recognition and Protection of Refugees (Law 26,155), excluding those guilty of various political and common crimes, after withdrawing political asylum from Evo Morales (granted the Bolivian ex-president by the Frente de Todos government in 2020). On the same day the government completed the regulation of its RIGI major investment incentive scheme for ventures topping at least US$200 million. 

 

THAT F-WORD AGAIN

The government also called the Malvinas Islands the “Falklands” in a Defence Ministry website post following a Wednesday meeting between Foreign Minister Diana Mondino and Red Cross Committee vice-president Gilles Carbonier to facilitate visits to 1982 war graves on the islands before rapidly correcting the misnomer. Mondino, who attributed the error to internal malice, said that the person responsible would be identified and fired. The use of the British colonial name sparked widespread criticism, especially from Peronists.

 

VACA MUERTA ALIVE AND WELL

While drilling activity in Argentina has contracted this year to the tune of 12 percent, Vaca Muerta shale continues to resist the trend, report Tecnopatagonia consultants, inching up one percent and heading towards 18,000 fracking operations this year, a new record (with 13,837 in its first three quarters, according to Multistage). Some sectors though have plunged as much as 75 percent with conventional drilling as a whole down 31 percent amid economic uncertainty. 

 

ALBERTO V FABIOLA: NANNY BLAMES AI

Noelia del Valle, the former nanny of Francisco, the son of the estranged couple Fabiola Yáñez and Alberto Fernández, testified in court last Tuesday morning that the gender violence evidence against the ex-president could have been "fabricated" by Artificial Intelligence since she had "never" witnessed any arguments between them nor "seen Alberto treat anybody like that." Her hour-long testimony described the relationship between the former presidential couple as "cordial" (although admitting to hearing voices raised over the telephone on her penultimate day with her complaint the following day, the last of August 2023, being understood by "la señora Fabiola" as her resignation) while claiming to have seen Yañez hit the bottle on a few occasions. The latter’s bruises were part of "beauty treatment," she further testified.

 

KISSING JUDGE ACQUITTED

Former Chubut judge Mariel Alejandra Suárez, caught kissing a convict sentenced for killing a policeman in 2021 by courtroom cameras, was acquitted last Monday after judge Marcelo Nieto Di Biase ruled “her conduct to be ethically subject to reproach” while falling short of being a crime. The malfeasance and nonfeasance charges against her included calling in sick and delaying a court hearing by one day but Nieto Di Biase could not detect any infringement of criminal law, also pointing out that however reprehensible her conduct might be, “she has already been tried by the Impeachment Tribunal and removed from the bench.”

 

WHEN I’M (ALMOST) 74

Pop legend Charly García turned 73 last Wednesday, celebrating it by attending the Paul McCartney show in Córdoba the same evening and relaunching his latest album. His birthday was marked by various tributes, including the ‘Charly García Day’ presented by the Olga YouTube streaming channel and featuring most of the most famous musical names in Charly’s long career.

 

ANOTHER FOOTBALL ASSAULT

After the setback of Claudio ‘Chiqui’ Tapia’s re-election at the helm of AFA Argentine Football Association one year ahead of schedule, the government has decided to place the spotlight on AFA accounts for presumed irregularities, as well as finalising the legal details to strip football clubs of their tax breaks. AFA declared itself 13 billion pesos in the red last July with no clear information as to the creditors. President Javier Milei last weekend said that “AFA resembles the Venezuela of Nicolás Maduro, who brought forward Christmas,” also urging transforming football clubs into SAD limited companies by arguing: "Nobody is obliged to change their model but if anybody wants to, they should be given the possibility.”