The frenetic pace that the libertarians managed to impose on the Congress during the summer was abruptly cut short. After having chained a series of important legislative victories, such as the approval of the labor reform or the record-breaking ratification of the trade agreement between the Mercosur and the EU, everything seemed to indicate that President Milei would bet on prolonging the winning streak and taking advantage of the majority he managed to consolidate thanks to the allied blocs and the help of some governors. However, both Chambers entered a kind of lethargy and no sessions are scheduled until April.
Last Sunday, in his opening speech of ordinary sessions, President Javier Milei announced the sending of “90 packages of structural reforms” to “redesign the institutional architecture of the new Argentina”. So far, none of those projects have gone through the entrance desk. In fact, not even the main referents of La Libertad Avanza in Deputies and the Senate know in advance what the priority issues will be for the Casa Rosada.
“For now, we only have the Glacier Law ahead of us”, acknowledged a prominent figure from the violet bloc in the Chamber of Deputies. But that debate will be delayed since the ruling party agreed to call public hearings for civil society to participate in the discussion. They will be held on March 25 and 26 and the opinion could only be signed after that, but that week overlaps with the April 2 holiday for the Malvinas and Holy Week, so the session would only be convened for Wednesday, April 8 or Thursday, April 9.
We recommend reading:United States confirmed the death of a seventh soldier since the beginning of the war against Iran
The processing of the modification of the Glacier Law in the Senate was express, but the change in attitude of the ruling party was motivated by the fear of judicialization since that requirement is imposed by the Escazú Agreement that Argentina signed in 2020. There were also libertarian deputies who suggested that they would be willing to make changes to the text if they allow the law to be clearer and thus avoid future disputes in the courts. All in order to not scare away foreign investments. In response to a query from Infobae, sources from the libertarian bloc in the Senate acknowledged that the Casa Rosada has not yet defined which projects it will send first. Last Sunday, Milei announced that he plans to reform the Civil and Commercial Code and the Civil and Commercial Procedural Code; the Consumer Protection Law and the Competition Defense Law; the Tax Regime and the Customs Code; ratify the Agreement with the US and sign new international agreements; eliminate environmental barriers; reform the Electoral Regime and the financing system of political parties; reform the Judiciary and the Penal Code; reform the three educational levels; enact a new seed law and other deregulation projects in various economic sectors. In libertarian circles, they speculated that political reform will be among the first projects to reach Congress. This will include as a main point the elimination of the primaries (PASO), but also increase the requirements to create and maintain the validity of political parties, change the financing system (more similar to that of the United States, with private contributions without limits) and adopt the single-member district system. Milei himself specifically alluded to the last point in his speech: “We need to comprehensively reform our electoral system, so that the representatives are accountable to their constituents.” The single-member districts were included in the first drafts of the Bases Law, but were later discarded due to rejection by the allies. This system, which mainly governs in Anglo-Saxon countries, such as the United States and England, would involve replacing the proportional representation system. The initiative would require applying a complex institutional engineering: it would force the subdivision of each district into constituencies, as many as there are elective positions in dispute and each political party could present a candidate in each one. At the end of the election, only one candidate per constituency would be imposed.Dialogue-oriented opponents, such as the PRO, the UCR and Provincias Unidas, have not yet taken a public stance on the elimination of the PASO, but they know that it would primarily benefit the incumbents and complicate coalitions that do not have a single defined candidate. Two years ago they also rejected the single-member district system and drastic changes in the financing of the parties.
- You can also read: Police shoots a woman who attacked an officer on Miami’s Dolphin Expressway
