In defeat for Milei, ultra-liberal package goes back to square one in Argentina’s Congress

On the day he arrived in Israel to support Benjamin Netanyahu’s government’s attacks on the Palestinian people, Argentine President Javier Milei suffered the first parliamentary defeat of his term. On February 6, the so-called Bus Law, an ultra-liberal package that is the government’s main project, went back to square one, with no deadline for it to be considered again by Argentine MPs.

With the defeat, Milei has already made his name in history: it is the first time that a text that has already been approved in plenary in the Chamber of Deputies has been sent back to its previous stage. The package, with more than 300 neoliberal measures that Milei has been trying to implement since December of last year, had its basic text approved February 2 and went to a vote on February 6.

There is also no record in Argentine history of the first bill passed by an administration being overturned by the ruling party itself. The request for the bill to go back to its initial stage was made by Oscar Zago, the government’s leader in the Chamber of Deputies, after he saw the main articles of the omnibus bill being overturned in the vote, particularly those dealing with state reform.

Before the topics dealing with privatizations in the country suffered the same fate, Zago jumped the gun and called for the Omnibus Law to be returned to the committee stage, which represents the ground zero of the process. “There are commitments that have not been fulfilled,” said the MP from the ruling Liberty Advancesparty.

Having been in Israel since February 6, Milei felt the blow and went on the attack against the MPs who voted against the bill, whom he called “delinquents”.

“The political caste, as we call this group of delinquents who want a worse Argentina and who are not willing to give up their privileges, have begun to dismantle our Bases and Starting Points law,” he said at a press conference in Israel, after meeting with Netanyahu.