(CNN Spanish) — Javier Milei, a right-wing candidate for Argentina’s presidency, promotes a plan that promises to transform the country in three phases that would span 35 years.
His party’s national electoral platform, La Libertad Avanza ―where it formalizes its government program―, indicates that it would work in the first instance on a significant cut in public spending and a reform to reduce taxes, with flexibility in the spheres of work, commercial and financial.
Second-generation measures would include a reform to cut funding for retirement and pensions, a reduction in the number of ministries to eight, and a phasing out of social plans. And to conclude with the plan, the “liquidation” of the Central Bank and reforms of the health, education and safety systems are foreseen.
Other controversial proposals, such as the dollarization of the economy, make Milei the big news of Argentine politics in the October 2023 elections.
The diagnosis of Freedom Advances
According to the document filed with the National Electoral Chamber, La Libertad Avanza promotes values such as “meritocracy, defense of the right to life from conception, honesty in the administration of public resources”, among others, and places its foundations in the “free market and free competition”.
At the same time, he argues that what he calls “populist, totalitarian governments” have spawned a “paternalistic state” that has encouraged “the easing of efforts” and discouraged private companies and people “who ended up going bankrupt or leaving the Village”.
The main proposals of Milei’s 35-year-old transformation
Among the ideas that the libertarian has publicly promoted and which are reflected in the document, the main axes are economic reform, currency competition that could culminate in dollarization, exchange rate unification, reduction of state spending and privatization of public companies .
In fiscal terms, the reforms provide for the elimination and reduction of taxes, as well as withholding taxes and export duties and all kinds of import tariffs for factors of production.
In the workplace, flexibility is central. It includes ending compensation and replacing it with unemployment insurance with the aim of reducing labor costs to “end informality,” according to the document.
In terms of health, the collection of services that the population currently receives free of charge or subsidized is becoming more widespread. And in education, the system of vouchers or checks to distribute funds to parents so that demand rather than supply is financed, as well as the elimination of the obligation for comprehensive sex education.
Free possession of weapons and militarization of prisons
The libertarian leader had already warned: the deregulation of the possession of firearms for citizens is one of the measures appearing in the electoral stage.
It also includes the militarization of prisons “to rebuild the system”.
Among other security points, consideration is being given to lowering the age of responsibility for minors, the prohibition of entry of foreigners with criminal records and the immediate expulsion of those who commit crimes in the country.
Controversial and provocative, the public statements of the presidential candidate of La Libertad Avanza spark public debate. He has repeatedly put many proposals on the table informally, although the one relating to free organ exchange is conspicuous by his absence from his platform.
However, there are those who doubt it, too advisors close to the economist– that if he manages to be president he can put into practice everything he says.
