Eight detainees and 7 injured agents have been registered during the days against the treatment of the regulations.
BUENOS AIRES. At least eight protesters were arrested and seven security force officers were injured during the protests. violent clashes registered between February 1 and 2, 2024 at the doors of Congress in Buenos Aires, where the ‘omnibus law’ is debated, as reported by the Argentine Government.
In the lower house the pproject promoted by the Executive chaired by the libertarian Javier Milei, with which the president intends to assume legislative powers within the framework of a multiple emergency period.
In his daily press conference, the Government spokesman, Manuel Adorni, described the task of the security forces as “titanic” and assured that the agents “managed to arrest the violent men”.
The Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, had expressed the same sense, who justified the police action and assured that this prevented “total disorder.”
The tension between the protesters and the agents, who acted following the strict instructions of the security protocol implemented by the Milei Government, worsened significantly on February 2, when the security forces charged against the mobilized people and they used rubber bulletsfire hydrant trucks and pepper spray to suppress them.
«We are not willing that a ‘small group’ of violent people try or want or achieve stop a legislative debate«said Adorni.
The police action in Congress Square during the debate on the ‘omnibus law’ has been widely criticized by the left, by Peronism and by independent organizations such as the Ombudsman’s Office of the City of Buenos Aires, which requested that the possible commission of crimes by the intervening security forces be investigated.
What is up for debate
The draft Law of Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines forms the heart of the Milei Government program, together with the fiscal adjustment shock plan and a decree of necessity and urgency with reform measures aimed fundamentally at deregulation of the economyboth presented a few days after the start of the new Administration that took power on December 10.
The initiative took almost a month to reach the plenary session of the Lower House after passing through various parliamentary commissions and the intense negotiations that the ruling party, with a negligible weight in Parliament, had to face with allies and some opponents in search of support for the project.
These negotiations led the Government to make the decision to withdraw the tax reforms chapter of the project and other articles that affected different areas.
However, until February 1, articles remained which have generated great controversyespecially the one that enables the Executive to privatize state companies and that by which Parliament delegates Milei for one year, extendable to another, broad powers that are inherent to the Legislature in several fields, including the economic one, due to the emergency that Argentina is experiencing, mired in a serious fiscal, inflationary and social situation.
According to local media, the Government agreed at the last minute to make some modifications to these two points with the aim of gaining support in the vote on the project article by article. EFE