Congress signs off on Milei and Villarruel as election winners
Legislative Assembly proclaims formula of Milei and Villarruel at event attended by lawmakers from all parties; Regulatory step before December 10 inauguration.
Eleven days before their inauguration, the presidential formula of Javier Milei and Victoria Villarruel, elected as president and vice-president respectively in general election, was officially proclaimed as the winner in the Senate on Wednesday.
Milei and Villarruel formally resigned their seats in the lower house Chamber of Deputies as Congress signed off on the results of the November 19 presidential runoff, in which the libertarian ticket defeated the ruling coalition rival ticket of Sergio Massaagustín Rossi.
The declaration is the official prelude to the upcoming December 10 inauguration. Lawmakers from parties in both chambers of the legislative assembly were summoned for the act by a decree signed by Vicepresident Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, the Senate chief.
A total of 257 deputies and 72 senators received the call.
After singing the national anthem, the vice-president called for an intermission while awaiting the formal summation of the results of the final count, carried out by a group of 12 legislators.
After this, Carolina Píparo, libertarian deputy and reporting member of the vote scrutiny commission, confirmed that the winning ticket was that of La Libertad Avanza, with 55.65 percent of the vote, compared to 44.35 percent for the candidates from Unión por la Patria.
The reading was confirmed by Fernández de Kirchner, who oversaw the session.
The last full Legislative Assembly session was held on November 2, when it met to proclaim the formulas that would compete in the run-off.
The swearing-in of the new president will take place on Sunday, December 10, a day that will mark 40 years of uninterrupted democracy in Argentina.
Argentina’s government has welcomed the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, highlighting the global effort that allowed six of its citizens to be released.
In a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry in Buenos Aires, President Alberto Fernández’s government hailed the news and thanked the Qatari government for its help in “mediation efforts.”
Argentina highlighted the release of six people “who had been identified by our country as hostages and for whom the cooperation of the government of Qatar had been requested in the framework of the mediation efforts.”
“Argentina hopes that it will be possible to achieve the unconditional and immediate release of all the hostages who are still in the Gaza Strip, without distinction of nationality, including other Argentines who remain captive,” the text added.
A total of 11 people were released by Hamas on Monday as part of a truce agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement that also saw the release of 33 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli custody. According to Qatar, the released prisoners – who are dual nationals – are three French, two German and six Argentine citizens.
Government sources in Buenos Aires said that two women, one of Argentine nationality and the other married to an Argentine, were released, along with two daughters each.
Local media later identified the Argentines as 51-year-old Karina Engel, and her two daughters, Mika, 18 and Yuba, 11; and Sharon Cunio, 34, and her two three-year-olds twins Emma and Yuli.
Engel was reportedly recovering from a double mastectomy and breast reconstruction surgery when she and her daughters were abducted from the Kibbutz Nir Oz.
Cunio is married to an Argentine, David Cunio, who remains a prisoner.
The group of 11 released hostages is now in Israel, where they are receiving medical attention.
In the statement, Argentina highlighted “the grave humanitarian situation prevailing in the Gaza Strip” and expressed its hope that “the level of international aid can continue to increase in order to strengthen assistance to the Palestinian civilian population, which is facing a humanitarian crisis of major proportions.”
Argentina had identified at least 21 nationals missing or in captivity since the October 7 attack by Hamas militants on Israeli territory. Fifteen are still being held, including a baby who was just 10 months old when she was kidnapped.
Earlier on Monday, a twoday truce extension was agreed, which will require at least 10 hostages to be released from the Gaza Strip each day in exchange for three times as many prisoners held by Israel.
On the many occasions when Margaret Thatcher found herself under attack by kind-hearted people who objected to her “neoliberal” policies, she responded by telling them “there is no alternative” – a catchy slogan which both her supporters and her critics summed up as ‘TINA.’ Like the British prime minister he evidently admires, Javier Milei has an equally simple answer to those who question his desire to take a chainsaw to public spending: “There is no money left.”
While the Iron Lady’s insistence that hers was the only conceivable way of dealing with the United Kingdom’s economic problems was always open to debate, the same cannot be said about the situation facing Argentina’s rulers: the country is flat broke, has little of value in the Central Bank vaults and is regarded with well-merited suspicion by foreign potentates, wealthy investors and the people who call the shots in the International Monetary Fund. Experience has taught them that Axel Kiciloff is not the only Argentine politician prone to take an unconventional view of the legal niceties that matter to businessmen. Not just elsewhere but also here at home, the consensus is that they are an untrustworthy bunch.
Though churning out ever-increasing quantities of orange-coloured banknotes has helped keep the local economy moving, it could soon bring about another hyperinflationary explosion which – according to the man who won the presidential elections by a comfortable margin – would in all probability impoverish about 90 percent of the country’s inhabitants. It may be already too late to prevent this from happening but, in public at least, serious economists keep their fingers crossed and say the disaster doomsters predict can still be averted.
It is widely agreed that those who voted for Milei want to consign the established order to what Leon Trotsky called the rubbish heap of history and replace it with something resembling what can be found in the ‘developed’ parts of the world. They would very much like Argentina to turn into what many wistfully describe as ‘a normal country.’ Given the circumstances, this seems reasonable enough, but for it to be more than just a wanhope a major cultural shift would be needed, one which would install a far more individualistic social and political order than the one that exists. For such a metamorphosis to take place, a large majority would have to be genuinely convinced that Peronism and, for that matter, the milder version of the populist creed represented by the Radical movement, have failed so dismally in practice that there can be no going back.
Is something on this line happening in the country’s collective mind? We could soon know the answer to this very important question. It will depend in large measure on the public reaction to the threats being mouthed by those defenders of the status quo who are determined to make Milei’s life impossible and vow they will fight tooth and nail against whatever cost-cutting measures he takes because they will harm the poor and, in many cases, unemployable men and women who depend on hand-outs.
Although Milei says he will not make such people suffer in the initial stages of the drastic reforms he has in mind, he must be aware that if he is serious about reining in inflation, his government will have to spend far less on social-welfare programmes than did those of his predecessors. No doubt he would like to take it easy for a while in order to give people time in which to adapt to what is coming their way, but, as he is well aware, the money needed for him to pay for what most have come to think of as theirs by right has already run out.
For any government, whether populist, neoliberal, Trotskyite or flat-earthist, catering to the pressing needs of the millions of people who are on welfare would remain a huge problem. Had Massa won the presidential election, he would now be frantically reducing public spending in an effort to keep hyperinflation at bay. For a month or so, he would’ve enjoyed the support of the labour unions and a large number of Peronist militants who could help him keep a lid on unrest, but it wouldn’t have been long before they too started demanding to be paid for their services.
Unlike Massa, Milei cannot rely on organised groups of heavies who would be happy to deal with anyone tempted to unseat him. Though he is supported, up to a point, by the almost 56 percent who voted for him, they are unlikely to include many seasoned street-fighters. So, will he be able to apply the law against trouble-makers? Quoting Juan Domingo Perón, who once proclaimed “within the law, everything; outside the law, nothing,” he says he will take a stern approach towards any protestor who oversteps the mark.
Milei is also in favour of making sure that all the beneficiaries of welfare programmes use credit cards so they can get their money directly from banks, in this way by-passing the activists that previous administrations put in charge of them in a variant of the tax-farming arrangements that were often favoured by pre-modern governments. The idea is that, by denying the “picket” leaders access to public funds, he will deprive them of their ability to stage big and often rowdy demonstrations in Buenos Aires and other cities. Another possibility that is being floated has to do with getting town mayors to play a bigger role in handling welfare programmes because they are presumably wellacquainted with the needs of people living in their districts.
All politicians say they think poverty is terribly bad and that they would like nothing better than to see it eliminated, but despite such sentiments many have grown used to seeing it as an asset because it gives them a chance to pose as generous benefactors. This is certainly true in the “feudal” provinces of the north and, needless to say, in the ramshackle slums of Greater Buenos Aires, where Peronism has long reigned supreme. Encouraged by the election results, some think that the victims of decades of populist misrule are beginning to attribute their plight to the selfishness, corruption and incompetence of politicians who are far more interested in their own well-being than in improving the living standards of those who provide them with votes and, via taxes, with money. This may be wishful thinking on their part, but there can be little doubt that some big changes are on the way.
For any government, whether populist, neoliberal, Trotskyite or flatearthist, catering to the pressing needs of the millions of people who are on welfare would remain a huge problem.
Brilliant, abrasive and ruthlessly ambitious, Henry Kissinger towered over post-world War II US foreign policy like no-one else and shaped a fateful new course for the world’s relationship with China.
As secretary of state to presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Kissinger was a master tactician whose intellectual gifts were begrudgingly acknowledged even by his many critics, who nevertheless faulted his disregard for human rights and democracy in the Vietnam War and elsewhere.
Instantly recognisable for a sharp-witted monotone that never lost a touch of his native German as well as his bookishly thick glasses, Kissinger became viewed by the public as the epitome of an international powerbroker, an image he capitalised upon as a consultant for decades after leaving office.
Kissinger died Wednesday at his home in Connecticut, a statement from his consulting firm said. He was 100 years old.
‘REALPOLITIK’
The name Kissinger is often paired with “realpolitik” – diplomacy based on power and practical considerations.
Lauding his cold-eyed view of advancing US interests, admirers compared him to history’s great statesmen such as Bismarck, Metternich or Richelieu.
But for many, especially on the left, Kissinger was seen as an unindicted war criminal for his role in, among other events, expanding the Vietnam War to two more countries, supporting Chile’s 1973 military coup and Argentina’s brutal military junta, green-lighting Indonesia’s bloody invasion of East Timor in 1975 and turning a blind eye to Pakistan’s mass atrocities during Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence.
Born Heinz Alfred Kissinger into a Jewish family in Fuerth, Germany, on May 27, 1923, the future architect of US foreign policy fled the Nazi regime in 1938 with his father, a schoolteacher, his mother and a younger brother. The family resettled in New York.
“I thought I’d be an accountant,” he told USA Today in 1985. “I never thought I’d teach at Harvard. It wasn’t my dream to become secretary of state. I could not ha ve hada more fortuito usseri es of events occur.”
Kiss in gerworke data shaving brush factory while he attended high school at night. Upon graduation, he studied accounting at the City College of New York but was drafted into the army in 1943 before he could graduate.
His knowledge of German landed him in an infantry division intelligence unit tasked with identifying Nazis as the Allies advanced in Europe.
In the army, Kissinger met his first mentor, fellow German refugee Fritz Kraemer, a political scientist who persuaded him to transfer to Harvard, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1950 and doctorate in 1954.
But Kissinger’s ambitions went beyond academia: he wrote for think tanks and took consulting jobs for the National Security Councilanduss tate de partment under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.
Seeking government service, in 1968, Kissinger switched support to Nixon, who would make him his national security advisor.
Distrustful of the US State Department’s career diplomats, Nixon accurately believed that his dogged advisor would make the White House the centre of foreign policy and he named a low-profile secretary of state, William Rogers, who was seen as lacking the intellectual heft of Kissinger.
But by late 1973, with Nixon becoming embroiled in the Watergate scandal that would end his presidency, Rogers quit and Kissinger became secretary of state, keeping the post until January 1977 following Ford’s election defeat to Jimmy Carter.
In an unprecedented arrangement that demonstrated his absolute influence, for two years Kissinger remained national security advisor while serving as secretary of state.
Nixon had built his political name on strident anti-communist but he welcomed Kissinger’s concept of “détente,” a methodical effort to find areas in which the United States could ease tensions with the Soviet Union.
Kissinger shepherded the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) with Moscow, the most serious effort to control the Cold War nuclear arms race. In 1972, the superpowers reached the Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, imposing limits on their arsenals.
As part of a strategy of isolating the Soviet Union, as well as shaking up diplomacy on Vietnam, Kissinger took a landmark decision that would arguably become his most consequential – reaching out to communist China.
Self-isolated amid the destruction brought on by Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, mainland China since the 1949 Communist victory had been cut off from the United States, which recognised the defeated nationalists who had fled to Taiwan.
Kissinger secretly flew to Beijing in 1971 via Pakistan and met Premier Zhou Enlai, paving the way for Nixon’s breakthrough trip a year later in which the president clinked glasses with Zhou, visited the ailing Mao and set the stage for diplomatic relations.
COLD-EYED TACTICIAN
“That China and the United States would find a way to come together was inevitable given the necessities of the time,” Kissinger wrote four decades on one of his 20 books. “That it took place with such decisiveness and proceeded with so few detours is a tribute to the leadership that brought it about,” he wrote with an understated immodesty typical of him.
Domestically, ending the divisive Vietnam War was a top priority. Nixon campaigned on achieving “peace with honour” and upon taking office, he and Kissinger began a policy of “Vietnamization” that would force the South Vietnamese allies to take on a larger role so that US troops could withdraw.
Seeking to strengthen the US hand ahead of peace talks, Nixon and Kissinger authorised a 1969-1970 bombing campaign in Laos and Cambodia aimed at disrupting rebel movement into South Vietnam. The bombing, which was not authorised by the US Congress and kept secret from the public, did not halt the infiltration but killed thousands of civilians and helped spawn the genocidal Khmer Rouge.
Kissinger travelled several times to Paris, at first discreetly, for talks with North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho. An agreement was finally signed in January 1973 that effectively ended US military operations, and the two men were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, although only Kissinger accepted it.
Showing his cold calculus, taped conversations with Nixon revealed that Kissinger had fully expected South Vietnam to fall after the accords.
In another example of his realpolitik, Kissinger recommended that the United States delay weapons shipments to ally Israel after it was attacked in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, believing Arab states would be more confident to make peace after achieving initial victories.
The record of Kissinger – who headed the “40 Committee” that directed foreign intelligence operations – has drawn intense scrutiny. In a 2001 book, writer Christopher Hitchens made a case that he should be prosecuted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Declassified documents show a direct US role in undermining the government of Chile’s Marxist elected president Salvador Allende, including support for officers who murdered a general who refused to participate in a 1970 coup attempt and backing for the eventual 1973 takeover by General Augusto Pinochet.
Kissinger was also criticised for allowing the Indonesian regime of Suharto, a close anti-communist ally, to use his Us-equipped military to seize East Timor in 1975. The invasion was launched one day after Kissinger and Ford met Suharto in Jakarta.
More than 100,000 East Timorese died during the Indonesian occupation that ended in October 1999, according to a 2005 estimate by the now independent nation’s truth commission.
Nonetheless, Kissinger’s intellect made him a brief, if niche, sex symbol as rumours swirled of his relationships with Hollywood celebrities.
As Kissinger wryly observed in the 1970s, “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”