Javier Miley This Tuesday it encountered the first major brake on experiment politician that he leads, and with which he intends to convert Argentina in one of the most liberal countries in the world. After four months of insistent attacks and disqualifications of those who do not agree with his project, the Argentine president worked a miracle, almost a mixture of water and oil: united in the same demonstration Peronists, radicals, social democrats, students, teachers, the two labor confederations and even ultraliberal legislators.
“The UBA defends itself!”has been the cry in the center of Buenos Aires, collapsed since midday by the tens and tens of thousands of people who converged towards Congress, first, and the Plaza de Mayo, later, to leave a message at the doors of the pink House: “In defense of public education”. The demonstration has been the most important since Milei came to government on December 10 of last year.
The University of Buenos Aires (UBA) is a center of higher education founded in 1821 and in which Argentines and foreigners can graduate for free. Although the UBA led the protest, it has spread to several provinceswith a strong axis in Córdoba, in the center of the country. The National University of Córdoba is the oldest in Argentina, founded in 1613, and more than 50,000 people came out to defend it throughout the day. In November, Milei won in Córdoba with 76% of the votes.
The dispute between the government and the universities arose from the financing of the very wide network of public universitieswhich a good part of Argentines identify with the power of their extensive middle class and the possibility of social advancement. The UBA counts among its pride the five Argentine Nobel Prize winners, who were students and, in some cases, professors on its faculty. The UBA also gave the country 16 presidents.
“How can I not defend the public university, if It made me what I always wanted to be.? A biologist defending nature. I think my parents would not have been able to pay for a private university,” Juan Cruz Martín, a 27-year-old biologist who joined the march, told EL MUNDO.
“I am the son of Spanish immigrants, and I owe the possibility of social advancement to the free public university,” repeated in recent days Jesús Rodríguez, Raúl Alfonsín’s Minister of Economy in the ’80s.
In those years, the Argentine democratic spring, no one proposed what is repeated today from sectors of the Milei government and from the president himself: the UBA spends its budget in an obscure way, which is nourished by public resources, and promotes ideological indoctrination.
The “indoctrination” thing falls by its own weight: Milei has several UBA graduates among its ministers. Budget management is another matter: public universities have their academic and budgetary autonomy guaranteed, but the government maintains that their management of funds must be audited, since the university would be a kind of ‘black box’ of politics, especially of radicalism, a party that historically leads the student centers of Argentine higher education houses.
While this dispute is being resolved, the UBA accuses the government of purposely defund it. “He budget cut is 61%, and the reduction in salaries in the four months that Milei has been governing, of 35%,” said Matías Ruiz, head of the Treasury of the UBA. “We are excited by the support we are receiving from civil society in this situation,” added Ruiz.
Guillermo Francos, Milei’s Minister of the Interior, believes that the protesters are not aware of what is happening: “We are all understanding, except for those who are marching today, who still do not understand what the situation in the country is.”
Among those who dissent from Francos are legislators from La Libertad Avanza (LLA), Milei’s party. Nine deputies in the province of Buenos Airesthe most powerful in the country, they expressed in a statement their differences with the government: “We express once again our commitment to the defense of public education, the historical pride of our country. The healthy discussion that the national government has proposed to have regarding the dimension of the State and its responsibilities, can in no way affect compliance of its essential obligations”.
But president, more and more in his castle, he has turned to social networks to disqualify the march and point out its “politicization”. Milei “liked” or spread several posts in which it is stated that the mobilization is against the audit for the use of university budget funds.
“An image that he shared several times was one taken in the direction of the Plaza de Mayo, where you can see flags with slogans and the logos of the CGT (General Confederation of Labor) and the Communist Party. “Are there any doubts that it is a march? political and not student?” or “This is how Plaza de Mayo is prepared for the march: logos of the CGT, and the symbol of the communist hammer and sickle. Ah, but the march is not political, eh,” said some of the posts that the president retweeted on the social network“, he pointed The nation.
The march comes hours after Milei addressed, on Monday night, a 15-minute message to the country in which he celebrated the first quarter of financial surplus in 18 years, although several economists pointed out that this result was reached thanks to the postponement of an important series of payments by the State.