A MONOTHEMATIC GOVERNMENT​

There is a phrase by Mahatma Gandhi that may seem far removed from politics, but it is relevant to what Argentina is going through today. “Watch your thoughts because they will become words. Watch your words because they will become actions. Take care of your actions because they will become habits. Watch your habits because they will determine your character. Watch your character because it will determine your destiny,” he says. The point is to take care of words, which are transformed into actions. In the political world, the word of a leader is an act, it produces things, it has a special density. If we transfer it to the international world, this is enhanced. This is what appears in the conflict, which increased this weekend, as a result of Javier Milei’s visit to Madrid to participate in a convention of Vox, a far-right party in Spain.

Words are facts, they produce situations. Today we are in a conflictive situation with Spain, in the bilateral relation between the two States due to words that were said from Madrid towards Argentina and from the Argentine government towards Spain. Everything seems to be a misunderstanding, a mistake. The effect of someone who does not understand the game he is playing. But it is not so. In what Milei does in Spain with his words, there may be temperamental traits, there may be a way of being, of Milei’s subjectivity and style, but mounted on those traits there is a strategy. It is not original or exclusive to Milei, but it reproduces in Argentina quite generalized tendencies in Western politics.

The Swiss-Italian author Giuliano Da Empoli, who has been studying the problem of the new communication strategies, linked to social networks, to the use of technology, to express leaders and, to some extent, to manipulate audiences, was in Buenos Aires this weekend until yesterday. All this is very well described in his book “Ingenieros del caos”, which refers to the strategists behind those leaders. Among us, Jaime Durán Barba or Santiago Caputo, to give two examples. Da Empoli explains that the raw material of politics today is emotions. Much more than ideas. He affirms, following some philosophers who study this subject, that the key to manage the political struggle is anger, anger, anger. If one wants to take it a little further, hatred. According to these authors and political strategists, hatred is much more effective than programs, plans or dreams to group people, to mobilize behind a power project, to obtain adhesion. So, the task of a leader today would be to install a new motive for hatred on the scene every day. To choose an enemy and to attack him, to denigrate him and thus mobilize behind him a permanent opposition between us and them. An opposition ruled by fury. The idea behind it is that the old objective of politics, the traditional objective of the parties, or of the churches, was to channel aggressiveness, to dominate it, to rationalize it. The ideal was St. George slaying the dragon, not exciting the dragon. Now it seems that this logic has given way to another: that anger must be provoked, stimulated. It is the great input of politics.

This can be projected, as is happening today with Spain, onto international relations. Because if it is primarily a matter of leading a faction that confronts another in aggressive terms, the leader ends up choosing one role over another. He stops pretending or dreaming of being the head of a state, of a nation, of a plural, multifaceted group and chooses to be the head of a faction, of one tribe against another. In Milei this choice seems to predominate and he looks at the other country, he looks at the other nation also as a set of factions. This weekend he traveled as head of one faction, La Libertad Avanza, to identify with another faction, Vox. Milei went as a militant of that faction to participate in the activity of a political party.

A spokesman for the Popular Party of Spain, the party of Aznar, of Rajoy, of Núñez Feijóo, from the old categories, said this Monday: “It is very strange, it is the first time that Milei comes to Spain as head of State, and he did not greet the King, nor the Government, nor the Parliament”. That ritual seems to have gone out of fashion. He conducts himself as part of an international faction to support, a party and a leader, Santiago Abascal, who, he says, recognized him when no one else did. Something very constant in Milei’s thinking: to thank those who highlighted or distinguished him when others were bullying him. He went to support the leader of Vox. One might think, is it business? It remains to be seen, it is a 12% party, it came third in the last elections, those of last year. Now they are campaigning again in Spain for the European Parliament elections. Probably, according to all calculations, Vox is going to come third again, a little more encouraged now by this controversy opened by Milei. He went not only to embrace his friend but to attack the enemy of his friend, who is Pedro Sanchez, the leader of the Socialist government. One could say that they started it because the socialist Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, about 15 days ago spoke about Milei being a drug addict. At that time, Milei answered as he does now, touching a normally sensitive fiber of human beings and political leaders, he assaulted Sánchez’s wife. He called Begoña Gómez corrupt, who is being investigated for a problem of influence peddling, apparently for having benefited in her career in dealing with companies that are regulated by the State led by her husband.

These types of aggressions against family members always leave a special mark. If not we must remember Jair Bolsonaro’s disqualifications of Emmanuel Macron’s wife, which gave a permanent orientation to the bilateral relationship between Brazil and France throughout Bolsonaro’s mandate. Sanchez took his wife’s aggression and transformed it in a very clever, cunning, manipulative way. You have to see who Sanchez is, according to a very powerful voice in Spain such as the writer Arturo Perez-Reverte. In a television interview, he describes the leader of socialism as “a fascinating character”. “He is a political adventurer, he is a gunman, an assassin. He has like chess players that killer instinct, but at the same time he hasn’t read a book in his life I’m sure of that. Or he has read very few, but he has in his veins Machiavelli, Bodin, Althusius, the political theorists of the Renaissance; he has them all. He has an extraordinary political instinct. Moreover, he is courageous, he is tenacious, he is daring. He has no scruples whatsoever.

Undoubtedly, he is the most interesting politician in Spain and possibly in Europe. Politicians are almost all infamous, they are capable of selling their mother. But Sánchez does not give her away. He surrenders ours instead of his. In a novel, I would play him as a bad guy. He is very good at what he does”. What Sergio Massa wouldn’t give for a characterization like this, right?

Sánchez used Milei’s words and stated that the attacked in this case is Spain, the Spanish society attacked by the ultra-right. Milei and Abascal as representatives of the opposite of everything good that Spaniards want to be. He translated this into a conflict between Argentina and Spain. He called the Spanish ambassador in Buenos Aires for consultation, which is the previous step to a rupture of relations and got something else: that another very important socialist, Josep Borrell, who is the chancellor of the European Union, also showed solidarity with the Spanish government, no longer with the woman accused of corruption.

Probably, thanks to Milei, Sánchez is intimately celebrating because for a few hours or a few days the controversy in Spain was raised between socialism and Vox, which is the most comfortable opposition for Sánchez, the least challenging. Because Sanchez’s problem is not Vox but the Popular Party (PP), which will probably win these European elections as it won last year’s national elections. The PP was marginalized and Sánchez was left facing the smallest right-wing party, thanks to Milei, who today was in the bars of Madrid, where there were TVs on, a figurehead. This is another dimension of the issue.

From the state, traditional, institutional logic, there is no reason for the president of a country to get involved in factional quarrels in another country. But Milei sees himself not so much as the head of a state, but as a kind of prophet of a creed. He said it at the Vox event, during his speech: “I am the disseminator of the ideas of freedom, I also exercise almost provisionally the function of head of state”. But he likes more to be recognized in the social networks, in the world of public opinion of the international right for the ideas he preaches, for the aggressiveness with which he does it and not so much for routinely devoting himself to the tasks of a head of state.

In any case, there is an institutional problem. The hyper-orthodox economist, at the time linked to his campaign, Carlos Rodriguez, pointed it out in his X account: “He went to speak against the lefties paid by the taxes of the lefties”. Argentines who may sympathize with the socialist government of Spain pay with their taxes a trip made with state resources to go to insult “lefties” like them. There begins to be the problem of institutional character that Rodriguez points out. Another problem is that this produced a reaction in the Spanish companies invited to have a meeting with Milei. They sent managers, very few of the most brilliant figures of Spanish capitalism. Those managers made it clear in the newspapers, off the record, that they went because they were obliged to go. They were talking to Sánchez. When the fray took another temperature, the managers of those companies came out to take off from Milei. If one were to say that the main function of the Argentine president in this kind of trips is to attract investments to a bankrupt country, probably what he did goes against that objective. Let’s not say that Spanish companies will stop investing in Argentina because of this kind of conflicts, because investment is very much determined by interest and business. But it certainly does not help. Milei may say that for him that function is secondary, just as he says that when he loses a law in Congress he does not feel it as a political failure, but as a demonstration of its truth: there is an obstructive caste that prevents things from getting done. He may argue that he is more satisfied with the diffusion of an idea than with the concrete management. He is more prophet than king.

The Government indulges in these tastes, Milei indulges in these tastes, which involve putting his figure and his leadership above the State and the general interest, because he has two advantages. The first one is the drop in inflation, which, regardless of its consistency, is much more accelerated and pronounced than even the most optimistic admirers of Milei predicted. The most critical economists admit that they did not think that the decline in inflation would be so rapid. The second factor on which Milei floats, in a consensus that according to polls remains stable, is the vacuum of others. The vacuum of the other political forces. The lack of strategy, leadership, discourse. They are paralyzed. They are perplexed in front of this novelty that is the unexpected defeat against an outsider, without structure, without team, only with a communication strategy and a great personal temperament. And also astonished in front of a number of ideas that the outsider proposes and that society accepts, when it did not accept them, apparently, before. Above all, it tolerates an adjustment that at another time it would not have accepted.

This vacuum in the political environment makes La Libertad Avanza and Milei the only subjects of the scene. The clearest expression of this picture is that Mauricio Macri, former president of the Nation, and president of a political party, took over the leadership of that party in a meeting of ten people via Zoom. The vacuum gives Milei the possibility to indulge in the personal self-celebration he gave himself in this open conflict with Spain.

This drop in inflation raises some doubts because it is greatly helped by something that, being an ultra-liberal government, one would have to ask permission to mention without offending: price freezes. For example, energy prices. In the networks some people said that “they do not dare”, that “they think it is a bit much, but maybe they should bring Don Julio, who was an expert in that”. They were referring to Julio De Vido, who spent ten years manipulating the problem of the tariff freeze, trying not to let it explode in his hands.

Luis Caputo, the Minister of Economy, with the argument that he does not want to burden the middle class with new costs, issued resolutions that were published in the Official Gazette, announcing tariff adjustments that are now postponed by word of mouth. There are no resolutions that say that what was going to be done will not be done. Increases in electricity, gas and transportation continue to be postponed, and will probably be postponed even more, because one must assume that when winter arrives there will be more consumption, and therefore bills will be higher. If the aim is to avoid costs for the middle class, it will be more rational to postpone in the winter than now.

This means that the solution to one of the roots of the great problem of the Argentine economy, which is the cost of energy subsidies, continues to be postponed. This is reflected in the inflation indexes. There are economists who piously say that it is not repressed inflation, but postponed inflation, which will come later. Something similar happened with the policy related to health and the regulation of prepaid medicine prices.

In the meantime, the Government spreads, with a great communication machinery, the fiscal effort it is making. It does so by embracing some symbolic issues which are very important for its public, such as frauds in the administration of public resources by social movements. There, prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan renders extraordinary services, just as he did during Macri’s government, when he was going around the countryside looking for Lázaro Báez’s money. Afterwards, all those cases with so much foam, in Marijuan’s hands, are weakened, delayed, lost. But today he is in his prime moment: when he collaborates with the newly arrived government with a great judicial show. Curiously, some piqueteros associations do not appear in Marijuán’s story. It is always the same ones that did fraud with the resources given to them.

This is not the only issue. The Government, Sandra Pettovello, Marijuan, and Patricia Bullrich herself talk about intermediaries keeping part of the resources of the subsidies that the State gives to the most vulnerable people. An aberration that has to do with a central problem in Argentina’s social policy, which is its privatization in the hands of people who do not know who voted for them or who authorized them to manage those resources.

But this is not the only distorting administration of resources. In a table, we collected the ten organizations that received more money directly, as an organization. But that did not necessarily reach the beneficiaries. This money was destined to associations and cooperatives and we are going to consider the data of the first semester of 2023. The civil association El Amanecer de los Cartoneros received US$1,000,000 in that period. The Asociación Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo, almost US$1,000,000. The civil association Centro de Estudios y Trabajo para la Igualdad Social received US$432,000. The civil association Mujeres Evita received US$392,000. The José Martí Community Association received US$345,000. The civil association of Emigrants and Refugees from Eastern Europe, US$198,000. What audit will there be of how these resources are applied by those who receive them? In total, among the first ten, US$10,000,000 were transferred. However, there are more than 50 associations.

There is also the case of the cooperatives. Cooperativa de Trabajo Manos Berissenses (from Berisso), which was very active during last year’s election campaign, received US$2,700,000 in six months. Cooperativa de Trabajo Los Pitufos received US$1,700,000. Cooperativa de Trabajo Mariscal Francisco Solano López, also US$1,700,000. Cooperativa Textil, the same amount. Cooperativa 15 de Julio, US$1,600,000. Cooperativa 25 de Mayo, almost US$500,000. In total, the cooperatives took US$31,000,000.

What kind of control is there over this? What is the State doing today with these subsidies? Why was so much given to one and so much to another? Mystery. There is an enormous opacity in all that is the derivation of resources from the State to private institutions.
The fiscal problem is still open. It raises questions. There are experts who say that the fiscal surplus shown by the Government is also tied to inconsistencies related to energy subsidies and even to payments that the State does not make. There is a big scandal around, for example, the debt of Cammesa, the company that manages the electricity market, with the electricity generators. There is a debt of US$1,200,000,000,000 that Caputo wants to pay with a bond that has a 50% haircut and is not going to be paid until 2038. It is a practically admitted default. This also casts doubt on the fiscal issue. Meanwhile, the behavior of prices continues to show many oddities.

An excellent chart we presented about a month ago, made by Marina Dal Poggetto, shows the price variation from December 2018, perhaps the last moment where one could speak of certain normality, until November 2023. It does not include the price adjustments of the Milei era. This is the inheritance that Milei receives. The products or services are ordered from highest to lowest, with very important references which are salaries, the official dollar, the cash with liquidation and inflation. There is a marked difference between wages and inflation. For example, from 2018 to 2023, pensions went up 9.4 times. The price of vehicles rose 20.5 times. Clothing, 20.3 times. Household appliances and electronics, 23.4 times. On the other hand, tariffs went up six times. Wages rose approximately 13 times, while prices rose 15 times.

Analyzing the behavior of these prices from December until now, it can be seen that the gap between wages and inflation has widened. Inflation rose 29 times and salaries 20 times, with a difference of 9 times. That is where the Government’s argument with the prepaid health insurance companies lies. They could argue that they have to continue increasing because, for example, medicines increased 39 times. What increased the most was the purchase of vehicles, 41.83 times. Fruits and vegetables, 38 times. Household appliances, 36 times. Meanwhile, rates increased 12 times, they were up 6 times and therefore continue to lag behind wages and inflation. Housing went up 14 times. Rent, 12 times. Education improved, but is still well below inflation.

If one looks without appreciating the details, one sees that all these are high priced goods, they are unregulated goods and very protected by Argentina’s economic regime. By a very closed economy. This explains this level of prices so far above inflation. There is also a backlog of variables where the Government postpones the increase, and that, behind, in one way or another, imply a subsidy. It is still an imbalance that the Government has not been able to overcome. While it manages to lower inflation, it does it through a very painful way, which is recession. A drop in activity that in many sectors is frightening.

Another CAME graph shows the level of industrial production of SMEs. It shows, on the one hand, the year-on-year variation and, on the other hand, the accumulated annual variation compared to the same month of the previous year. The average drop so far this year is 18.3%, and since April 2023, 19%. In activities such as paper, the drop in the year is 32%, and 23% year-on-year. In chemicals and plastics, the drop is 21.6% in 2024. In metal, machinery and transport equipment, practically the same, with a drop of 23%, almost 24% so far this year and year-on-year. This is a phenomenal drop in activity from which it is very difficult for economists to say how we are going to get out of, which is linked to another very interesting problem.

The Marketing and Statistics graph shows people’s concerns about inflation fell drastically. It is almost the only thing the government looks at. It is their only concern. Between December 2023 and January, it went from 66% to 38%. People are starting to stop worrying about inflation. This explains the success of Milei’s government, in terms of polls, in getting people to start not to worry about inflation.

There is also the institutional problem. That is where the mistake of going to fight in Spain to support the third party of Spanish politics and questioning the relationship between Argentina and the companies that should invest begins to be noticed. It appears in an unexpected way, already in the center of the economic problem, that great mistake that many point out to Milei: the nomination of Judge Ariel Lijo for the Supreme Court. This weekend, an article appeared in The Wall Street Journal, no less, that makes Lijo famous at an international level. It raises what everyone says: “Didn’t Milei come to clean up politics and now he nominates a corrupt judge for the Court?”. This is a problem that is beginning to invade politics. There were several pronouncements this weekend within Pro.

Although Macri does not speak in public about the issue, probably because he has commitments with the binguero Daniel Angelici, who is a close friend of Lijo. Neither does Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who is a friend of Lijo’s and who had among his followers Lijo’s girlfriend, Genoveva Ferrero, closely linked to the City government’s collection box, controlled for years by Edgardo Cenzón. But the former Communications Director of Larreta’s campaign, Rosendo Grobocopatel, did speak out, saying that if anyone is interested in Argentina, they must be interested in Justice and Lijo. Larreta’s Minister of Social Action, María Migliore, joined this opinion. So did Congresswoman Patricia Vázquez. There is beginning to be a demand, which we also see in radicalism, for the parties.

The eventual arrival of Lijo opened a fierce fight within the Court. A new criminal secretariat was created that would reduce the power of any judge of the Court, not only Lijo. However, Lijo, who wants to occupy that place, would arrive as a criminal judge. This produced a very atypical agreement, where Judge Ricardo Lorenzetti, who is Lijo’s godfather, set out over ten pages a number of more than negative judgments about his other three colleagues. Almost a sort of road map for the impeachment of the other three judges, which is perhaps in Lorenzetti’s fantasy. There are kirchneristas who say that he tried to induce them in Congress to move forward with that impeachment, which has now been deflated, against Horacio Rosatti, Juan Carlos Maqueda and Carlos Rosenkrantz. However, it seems that Lorenzetti is not the only judge of the Court who has some ties with the Government. The Government is starting to build other bridges. On May 31, there will be an event to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the constitutional reform, at the Council of the Magistrature, chaired by Horacio Rosatti, where former constituents such as Antonio María Hernández, María Cristina Guzmán, Carlos Corach and the former president of the Constituent Assembly, Eduardo Menem, father of the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Martín, and uncle of Karina Milei’s right-hand man, Eduardo “Lule” Menem, will be speaking. It would seem that there is a thread between Rosatti and the Casa Rosada that Lorenzetti probably does not like. So far these are issues that are not at the top of Milei’s agenda, nor is the goal of maintaining good foreign relations. He would give the impression that he is satisfied with lowering inflation fast and not much more. An obsessive government, a monothematic government, betting on a single success chip. We will have to see how it turns out.

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CARLOS PAGNI, political columnist for the newspaper LA NACIÓN. He is a professor of History at the National University of Mar del Plata and was a professor at the University of Buenos Aires.

This article was originally published in THE NATION, with whose authorization we reproduce here.