Argentine President Javier Milei’s economic reform package yesterday won Senate approval after police and protesters violently clashed outside Congress.
Lawmakers debated a swath of liberalizing reforms proposed by the president, while security forces fired tear gas and water cannons at people rioting outside the day before.
Late on Wednesday, the package won approval “in general” in the Argentine Senate, an important step for Milei’s effort to get his flagship reforms across the finish line.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“For those Argentines who suffer, who wait, who do not want to see their children leave the country ... my vote is affirmative,” Argentine Vice President and Senate leader Victoria Villaruel said after breaking the 36-36 tie in the chamber.
The bill’s separate articles were addressed point by point and approved with modifications in a full vote early yesterday.
The measure now heads to the lower house for a final green light.
The Argentine presidency celebrated the “historic approval” of the economic deregulation law as the “most ambitious legislative reform of the last 40 years.”
Milei’s party is in the minority in both houses of Congress, which he has described as a “nest of rats.”
The Senate went on to discuss a parallel tax reform, which includes reinstating an income tax to tax salaries and pensions.
Scuffles broke out earlier when protesters tried to bypass a system of fences set up between them and Congress.
Officers used rubber bullets and pepper spray against the rioters, who responded by lobbing stones at the police.
Seven people, including five lawmakers among the protesters, were treated at hospital after being pepper sprayed, the Argentine Ministry of Health said.
Dozens of others received medical attention at the scene.
Later, as night fell, thick blocks of shield-bearing officers and others on motorbikes pushed back the protesters, who overturned two cars — one of which belonged to a local media organization — and set them on fire.
At least 10 people were arrested and nine police officers were injured, a spokesman for the Argentine Ministry of Security told reporters.
In one scene, a lone protester stood and held his hand in military salute as he faced a phalanx of police in riot gear, with smoke from cannisters swirling around him.
The office of the president on X denounced “the terrorist groups that with sticks, stones and even grenades, tried to perpetrate a coup d’etat.”
Inside Congress, senators were debating into the night and early the next morning Milei’s reform bill, which was approved with major changes by the Argentine Chamber of Deputies in April.
The whittled-down bill has 238 articles, including declaring a one-year state of economic emergency, allowing Milei to disband federal agencies and privatizing about a dozen public companies including state-owned carrier Aerolineas Argentina.
Others deal with reducing access to minimum retirement allowances and weakening labor protections.
The provisions also envision tax, customs and foreign exchange incentives to encourage investment in the country wracked by economic crisis.
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