POLICE officers and thousands of protesters clashed in front of the Congress in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Wednesday evening.
The protesters gathered there to oppose the Economic Reform Bill, known as the Omnibus Reform Bill, of President Javier Milei.
If adopted, the bill will grant emergency powers to the president for up to two years, covering reforms in political, social, fiscal, legal, and other sectors.
On Thursday, protesters were seen marching, holding placards and Argentinian flags before clashes erupted with riot police officers who ended up using tear gas towards them.
“We have to go out every day if necessary, but especially today because laws are being debated and a decree of necessity and urgency is not the case, which is practically a decision of a dictatorship, which eliminates a lot of rights and laws that took years to be created in Argentina,” according to Claudia, Argentine protester.
The protest comes as Argentina’s Congress’s lower chamber was debating on the controversial omnibus law.
The presidential office expressed the confidence that there ‘should be no obstacle for the law to be approved’.
In their turn, the representatives of the opposition party ‘Union Por la Patria’ announced their intention to block the bill.
The opposition holds the majority in the Lower House of Congress with 219 seats.
The bill was first introduced with 664 articles, but after intense negotiations with the opposition, almost half of these have been removed.
President Milei’s Libertad Avanza Party only has 38 out of the 275 seats in Argentina’s Lower House of Congress, which means that the opposition largely outnumbers them there.
Milei’s push for his mega-bill comes amid Argentina’s grave economic crisis, with year-on-year inflation at 211% and more than 40% of the population living in poverty.
Milei’s government claims the plans will help clean up Argentina’s finances.
