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Exactly a year ago December 10, 2023ultra-liberal Javier Miley He was sworn in to become Alberto Fernandez’s successor.

Upon coming to power, he promised to sharply cut government spending to put an end to rampant inflation. This shock therapy undoubtedly contributed to a significant slowdown in price growth in the country, but it also caused an explosion of poverty. What do Argentines think a year later?

He promised to take a chainsaw through the Argentine state, and so he did… In one year, Javier Miley eliminated half of the existing ministries, fired 33,000 civil servants and cut government spending by 28% compared to the previous year.

To achieve what you like to describe as “the largest budget adjustment in human history”Argentina’s president has cut pensions, social benefits and subsidies for transport and energy. He also suspended all public works and minimized the transfer of resources to the provinces.

When it comes to deregulating the economy, the ultra-liberal president wastes no time. Already in December, he signed a mega-decree that repealed or amended more than 300 regulations and laws, and then created a ministry specifically dedicated to deregulation. The privatization of several state-owned companies has also begun.

Perhaps it is in dollarization, Milea’s key promise, that the Argentine president is far from the goal. Although measures have been taken to promote currency competition, replacing the peso with the dollar and closing the Central Bank still seem very far away.

Cruel but necessary for some

For Horacio, an architect, one year after applying Miley’s method is undoubtedly extremely cruelbut it is necessary no matter what. “The president is an economist and brings order to companies. Without him, we would have been doomed to disaster, and he put out the fire,” he admits.

From a macroeconomic perspective, it is undeniable that the ultra-liberal president’s austerity coup has borne fruit: runaway inflation has slowed significantly and the national currency has stabilized, even strengthening slightly. But at what cost Paloma asks? “The numbers are good, but people are poorer, something is wrong,” he laments.

More than every second Argentine lives below the poverty line

But Javier Milei’s first year in office was also marked by an economic downturn, the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and another four million Argentines living below the poverty line, already more than half the country’s population.

Despite all these setbacks, he still enjoys nearly 50% support, according to opinion polls. “But unless people regain some of their purchasing power, voters will run out of patience,” predicts one.

Voters who will return to the polls at the end of 2025 for the general election and for whom poverty and inequality are gradually replacing inflation as the main issue.