President Javier Milei’s government achieved its first victory in the National Congress. The approval of the so-called Bus bill (‘Ley Omnibus’) had 144 votes in favor, while 109 deputies rejected the proposal. Milei’s party, A Liberdade Avança (LLA) has only 38 votes, but had the support and votes of other parties, such as União Cívica Radical (UCR) and PRO (macrismo).
On Tuesday, deputies vote article by article on the law, which originally had 660 articles, but the government gave up around 300 of them to get votes from other parties. Afterwards, the project will be sent to the Senate.
Among the articles that were eliminated are, for example, the increase in taxes on exports (agricultural and other sectors) and the privatizations of the Casa da Moeda, among others. The chapter on privatizations initially included 41 companies and now has 27 companies and is one of the most controversial. The other is Milei’s article asking for autonomy (extraordinary powers) to implement measures, without the need for approval from Congress for a period of at least one year.
Non-government sectors, who voted in favor of the law in the Chamber, justified their vote, saying that without the law, Milei would have “governability problems”. Outside Congress, protesters returned to protest against the law and called for a new general strike. “General strike now”, they argued.