President Milais ran on a promise to put a chainsaw into public spending and continues to defend his approach.
Massive demonstrations were held across Argentina to protest cuts in education spending.
Hundreds of thousands of people rallied on Tuesday against the impact of President Javier Millei’s radical austerity measures on public universities, joining students and professors from the country’s powerful trade unions and opposition parties. It was one of the largest series of protests the South American country has seen since the far-right president took power in December.
Aerial footage showed waves of people occupying the center of Bueno Aries for hours. Similar scenes have been witnessed in several other cities, where organizers are calling for opposition to budget cuts that they say are putting universities at risk of closure.
The University of Buenos Aires claimed that more than 500,000 people took part in protests in the capital alone.
During her campaign, Milley brandished a chainsaw to symbolize her desire to cut public spending and downsize government in the face of serious economic challenges.
He has shut down ministries, cut funding to cultural centers, laid off state employees and cut subsidies to rebuild the economy.
He defended his radical approach on Monday as he celebrated the country’s first quarterly budget surplus since 2008.
“Despite the fact that the majority of political, trade union, media and economic actors are against us, we are making the impossible possible,” he declared.
indoctrination
Argentina’s education system is considered one of the best in Latin America. Public universities are free of charge and approximately 2.2 million students, including international students from other countries in the region, study at state-run universities.
But Millay calls them bastions of socialism in which students are “indoctrinated.” As part of its austerity measures, his government recently cut public university budgets by 71 percent. Meanwhile, Argentina currently suffers from the world’s highest inflation rate of nearly 290%.
Ricardo Guerpi, president of the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), which has produced Nobel laureates and many Argentine presidents, said: “At the rate they are funding us, we can only function for two more years.” , it’s only three months.”
Universities have warned they could be forced to close, leaving hundreds of thousands of students stranded midway through their degrees, a shock in a country that considers a free, high-quality university education a birthright. is.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Adolfo Porres Esquivel said at a rally in front of Casa Rosada: “We are defending our public, open and free universities. This is one of the great achievements of our people.” And we will not give up on that.” seat of government. “We are defending the right to live with dignity.”
