Amy Booth 
After issuing a vast decree on Wednesday night that attacks workers’ rights and clears the path for mass privatizations, President Javier Milei told Argentines on Thursday to expect more where that came from.
Business leaders such as billionaire Marcos Galperín have supported Milei’s announcement — but politicians and constitutional experts alike have argued that Milei cannot overturn so many laws via decree, and must instead go via Congress.
Meanwhile, groups ranging from renters’ rights associations to bank workers have organized protests in response to the measures. Protests erupted across the country after the decree was announced, with Argentines pouring onto the streets banging pots and pans in a national cacerolazo.
“Some people suffer from Stockholm syndrome and are attached to the model that’s making them poor,” the president said in an interview with Radio Rivadavia in reference to the protesters. “I’m telling you, more is coming, you’ll find out more soon.”
Galperín, the founder and chief executive of ecommerce platform MercadoLibre, wrote of Milei’s announcement: “You’ve been lied to for 80 years, yesterday they told you the truth in 10 minutes.”
Milei passed the measures via a kind of presidential decree known as a “decree of necessity and urgency” (DNU for its Spanish initials). Argentina’s Constitution states that these should only be used in “exceptional circumstances” when a situation is so urgent that there is no time for it to pass through Congress.
The decree takes effect the day it is published in the Argentine state’s Official Bulletin. The chief of staff then has 10 days to send it to Congress, and a commission of deputies and senators has 10 days to discuss it. It can then be voted on in Congress — but it stays valid unless both the Lower House and Senate reject it. Decrees often never make it to congressional debate.
Politicians respond
Politicians across the spectrum have been quick to speak out against the decree.
“This is a republic. The president must govern with Congress, not against Congress,” wrote Miguel Angel Pichetto, a national deputy with the right-wing Juntos por el Cambio coalition. He was Mauricio Macri’s running-mate in the 2019 presidential elections. “By law, many of the proposed reforms must be debated and voted on, and many of them could surely be approved […] The necessity and urgency is not justified, he could have called Congress to special sessions.”
Likewise, Senator Martín Lousteau of the center-right Unión Cívica Radical party underscored: “I agree that we must change many things in Argentina, among them the unproductive performance of parts of our state and regulations that block the smooth functioning of many sectors of the economy. But this DNU is 82 pages long with 366 articles that repeal and modify countless decrees.” He pointed out that if Milei is allowed to do this, it would set a precedent for future presidents to do the same. “No lasting reform can be achieved this way.”
Civil society organizations are gearing up to file a barrage of lawsuits against the decree, according to Diego Morales, head of the legal team at human rights nonprofit, the Center for Legal and Social Studies (CELS, by its Spanish acronym). He agrees that the government has not justified the urgency and necessity of the decree, and considers it unconstitutional.
“I was extremely worried because what he announced has nothing to do with a concrete emergency or urgent situation, but rather with the government’s need for a change of regimen,” he told the Herald.
“In reality, it’s a change to the structure that organizes people’s lives.”
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Laws can sometimes be overturned or modified by decree, but only to the extent that they are causing problems directly related to an emergency, something the government failed to demonstrate here, he said.
Andrés Gil Domínguez, a legal expert, added that it is not constitutional for a president to attempt to wholly substitute Congress’s role via decrees, and said that it could be considered treason.
More marches
Over the course of Thursday, employees of state-owned bank Banco Nación marched through Buenos Aires’ financial district chanting “Not for sale!” Some articles of the decree would pave the way for the bank to be privatized.
Renters’ rights group Inquilinos Agrupados has called a march for Thursday at 8 p.m., calling the reform a “criminal” move that would usher in mass evictions. The country’s 2020 Rental Law, which controlled rent increases and established minimum leases, was axed in the decree.
“Society cannot exist in peace when they throw us into the mouths of the lions,” the group posted, referencing the animal Milei has adopted as a symbol.
“Today, like yesterday, we’re going into the streets.”
