Argentina: deputies generally approve the 'Omnibus Law', but Milei still cannot claim victory

After three days of debate and negotiations against the clock, finally the “Draft Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines”, known as the 'Omnibus Law', was approved in the Lower House with 144 votes and 109 in against, in general.

Minutes after the vote, the President's Office issued a statement celebrating the favorable result.

“The Office of the President celebrates the positive vote of the deputies who generally approved the Law of 'Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines' and especially appreciates the collaboration of the deputies and heads of their respective blocks, Cristian Ritondo, Miguel Ángel Pichetto and Rodrigo de Loredo, who, despite our differences, have contributed to the law moving forward,” says the text spread on social networks.

However, The Argentine president, Javier Milei, still cannot claim victory. There are several articles that still need to be discussed in particular, mainly those referring to delegated powers, privatizations, debt and the PAIS tax, before the project passes to the Senate.

The debate to address the hot points of the law will be on Tuesday, February 6, starting at 2:00 p.m. local time (5:00 p.m. GMT).

Crosses and complaints in the longest session of Deputies in Argentine history

The project, which arrived in Congress on December 27 with 664 articles, was reduced by almost half after weeks of intense conversations between the ruling party and the dialogueist opposition blocs, made up of deputies from the Radical Civic Union (UCR), the PRO and We Make the Federal Coalition. One of the chapters that caused the most pain for the Executive to withdraw was the prosecutorafter receiving strong criticism from the opposition.

The special session began on Wednesday at 10 a.m. and the vote took place after 6 p.m. on Friday, February 2, after two intermission periods. The debate was dominated by a hot climate, with strong disagreements, discussions and complaints of “irregularities” in the ruling by legislators from Unión por la Patria and the Left Front.

Deputies who voted against the Project accused the ruling party and the closest opponents of having negotiated a 'blue' (parallel) opinion outside Congress.

The truth is that the negotiations between the ruling party and the dialogue blocs continued until minutes before the law was approved, something atypical in legislative processes, since, generally, important conversations take place during committee debates, that is, before for the project to arrive at the venue to be treated.

For political scientist Roberto Nolazco, manager of the Public Affairs and Issue Management area of ​​Prospectiva Public Affairs Latam, the three days of debate and the messiness that occurred since Milei sent the Project to Congress They are a product of his inexperience and that of his party, La Libertad Avanza.

“We have never had an 'outsider' president or one with so little legislative strength, and now we are having all that. It does not have governors, that never happened either. What has been happening in Argentine politics for several months now is very unprecedented,” explained political scientist Roberto Nolazco to France 24.

The expert also found it strange that the text continued to be modified as the session unfolded.

“It is very striking that an opinion was signed in the plenary session of committees to be debated in Congress knowing that this opinion was going to be modified. Throughout the entire process we see a clear lack of experience,” he said, referring to the president and members of the ruling party.

The disorder with which the three days of debate passed caused endless cross-statements during the session and on social networks, mainly due to the minute by minute changes that were made to the text.

“After 11 hours of session, the majority opinion does not appear and since we do not know what law we are discussing, the session is suspended until tomorrow. Never seen before!”, he wrote in his X account Leandro Santoro, legislator from Unión por la Patria (Peronist), on Wednesday, January 31 after the first day of debate.

For her part, deputy Myriam Bregman, from the Left Front, denounced in the session that the ruling was modified in a “department of Recoleta”, one of the most charming neighborhoods in Buenos Aires.

In statements to the TN program “A dos vozes”, right-wing deputy Jose Luis Espert, from Avanza Libertad, denied his political rivals and assured that they all had the “opinion printed on paper.”

While the hot weather reigned in the venue, In the streets the atmosphere was even more heated. To the almost 40 degrees of thermal sensation that the thermometer reached in the City of Buenos Aires between Wednesday and Friday, protests and incidents were added that led to a brutal repression by the police and the Gendarmerie against left-wing protesters, journalists, photographers and retirees .

Some legislators requested at that time to suspend the session, but the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Martín Menem, rejected the request.

The future of Milei governance

The difficulty that President Milei had in passing his flagship bill clearly shows that his governability will not be easy at all.

In this regard, Samantha Olmedo, a political consultant specialized in public opinion and academic coordinator at the School of Politics and Government of the Argentine Catholic University, believes that this situation can bring about “political instability.”

“It is very dangerous in terms of politics, because if each law is going to involve this type of negotiation, there is a constant risk of political instability,” added the expert.

For this reason, he estimates that in the future More Decrees of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) can be expected from the president, to avoid going through the legislative process.

“Except for some from the PRO, Milei today does not have formal or permanent allies that he can count on, and that gives him a lot of instability. It seems that, if the Legislature continues to be so intransigent, the DNU route will probably be more recurrent. This gives the president an advantage, since Congress does not have many rejections of decrees in its history. He knows that he has that under his belt,” Olmedo told France 24.

Regarding the debate that will take place next Tuesday, Nolazco assured that it will be key to defining how the law remains.

“They can approve the project and not approve a particular article. The strangest thing would be if they try to change a wording, which can also happen. But these two possibilities mean that we do not know what text is going to reach the Senate,” he explained to this medium.

The Executive knows the importance of Tuesday's debate and that is why it urged legislators to “count on the same greatness on the day of the vote on the law in particular, to advance to the Senate and begin to return dignity to the Argentine people.

“The only viable path for our Homeland is that of freedom, work and order,” states the statement from the Office of the President.