After suffering multiple defeats in Congress during its first two years in office, Javier Milei’s government is poised to become the largest minority party in parliament. Its victory in the legislative elections just over a month ago significantly improved the far-right’s position, and since then, successive splits within opposition blocs have allowed it to strengthen its position. On Tuesday, a split in the Peronist bloc completely cleared the path for the libertarian movement to become the largest minority party.

Three national deputies from Catamarca — a northern province 700 miles from Buenos Aires — announced they were leaving the Unión por la Patria (Union for the Homeland) bloc, the coalition led by former president Cristina Kirchner (2007-2015). The decision was made by Governor Raúl Jalil, one of the Peronist leaders who have shown themselves open to dialogue with Milei’s administration. Jalil’s reasons are both political — he has been critical of the national leadership of Peronism and has demanded “self-criticism” for the failure of the previous government — and economic — mining is a key industry in his province and also in the economic model promoted by Milei.

The three legislators will form their own caucus, which, it is presumed, will be available to negotiate legislation on a case-by-case basis. One option still under consideration is for the new group to ally itself within Congress with sectors led by other Peronist governors who have distanced from Kirchnerism, such as Gustavo Sáenz, governor of Salta, and Osvaldo Jaldo, from Tucumán. Both Sáenz and Jaldo are also inclined to reach agreements with the government. There is a fourth seat held by the Partido Justicialista (Justicialist Party) in Catamarca, which, for the time being, will remain within the Peronist bloc.

With the departure of the Catamarca legislators, the Union for the Homeland bloc is left with 94 of the 257 members of the Chamber of Deputies, and in the halls of Congress it is believed that the Peronist bloc will face further departures.

Milei’s party La Libertad Avanza (Freedom Advances) secured 95 seats on Tuesday, thanks to the addition of a representative from the province of Entre Ríos, and could continue to build support.

In the midterm elections on October 26, the far right won with 40% of the national vote. This result allowed them to more than double their meager representation of 38 seats, giving them control of nearly a third of the chamber. The support Milei garnered at the election — following the multi-billion dollar bailout granted by Donald Trump to his staunch South American ally — diminished the incentives to oppose the far-right government.

The first party to lose legislators to the far right was PRO. While the conservative party founded by former president Mauricio Macri (2015-2019) has acted as a reliable partner for the government, it has institutionally maintained its independence and has taken different positions in some votes.

But, in a gradual and steady process, a significant portion of its deputies and leaders have drifted away from Macri to join the libertarian ranks, following in the footsteps of Patricia Bullrich, who has just left her post as Minister of Security and will assume leadership of the ultraliberal bloc in the Senate. After the midterm elections, about 10 PRO deputies announced their move to the ruling coalition. There has also been an outflow of lawmakers from the century-old Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) toward La Libertad Avanza.

The term of the legislators elected in October will begin on December 10, when the parliamentary transition takes place. The deputies will take their seats this Wednesday in a preparatory session, where the stage will be set for Milei to attempt to advance his program of economic deregulation and dismantling of the state.

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More than one million descendants of Spanish exiles or emigrants have already applied for citizenship under the Democratic Memory Law through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ consular network, while another 1.3 million have requested appointments to submit their documentation but have not yet been able to do so due to bureaucratic delays. Of the one million applications initiated, approximately half have already been processed and citizenship granted, although many are still awaiting formal registration, while rejections account for less than 2% of the total.

These are the figures handled by the General Council of Spanish Citizenship Abroad (CGCEE), an advisory body to the government representing the more than three million Spaniards residing abroad. Its president, Violeta Alonso Peláez, speaking to EL PAÍS, urged the government to provide the necessary resources to prevent this avalanche of applications from overwhelming the consular network, comprised of 178 offices, including 86 consulates general and two consulates.

The total number of those seeking to benefit from the new law, 2.3 million people, is 4.5 times the figure reached under its predecessor, the 2007 Historical Memory Law (503,439). Sources familiar with the process estimate that, at the current rate, some descendants of Spaniards will have to wait decades to see their citizenship granted, and the oldest among them could die without ever seeing it happen.

The eighth additional provision of the Democratic Memory Law granted a two-year period, extendable to three, for all those “born outside of Spain to a father or mother, grandfather or grandmother, who were originally Spanish and who, as a consequence of having suffered exile for political, ideological, or religious reasons, or due to their sexual orientation and gender identity, had lost or renounced their Spanish nationality” to apply for citizenship. It also included those born abroad to Spanish mothers who lost their nationality by marrying foreigners before the Spanish Constitution came into effect, and the adult children of those whose original nationality was recognized under the 2007 law, thus filling the gaps left by the earlier legislation.

The final deadline, after the corresponding extension, ended on October 21st, which triggered a flood of applications in recent months that has exceeded all expectations and also the capacity of the Spanish consular network to process them. This has led to a more flexible interpretation of the law, so that the applications of all those who requested an appointment online to submit their documentation before the deadline, but who have been unable to do so until now due to a lack of available slots at the consulate, have been accepted.

More than 40% of the applications, around one million, come from Argentina. After that, the consulates with the next highest number of applications are Havana (Cuba) with 350,000, Mexico City with 165,000, São Paulo (Brazil) with 150,000, Miami in the U.S. with 120,000, and Caracas (Venezuela) with 40,000. This data comes from the CGCEE, as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to EL PAÍS’s request for comment.

Violeta Alonso underscored the need to expedite procedures and prevent these processes from dragging on for years. Among other things, the organization she heads has proposed that the more than 7,000 civil registries in Spain collaborate in registering new Spanish citizens, that additional staff be hired, or that more routine tasks, such as document digitization and data entry, be outsourced.

Alonso laments that the enormous amount of work generated by the implementation of the Democratic Memory Law has led to delays in the provision of other services, such as the registration of children of Spanish citizens born abroad. The president of the CGCEE warns that “a redeployment of the consular network is necessary,” since new Spanish citizens, once they obtain citizenship, will require other services from consulates, such as the issuance of passports, birth, marriage, and death certificates, and so on. “It’s not just a matter of increasing staff, although that’s also important, but in many cases, more physical space is needed,” she emphasizes.

It is estimated that the number of Spaniards residing abroad will increase from over three million to almost five million.

A report by the Association of Spanish Diplomats (ADE), the largest association within the diplomatic corps, noted last year that the latest official study found 28 facilities operating at full capacity, 68 with accessibility issues at their front doors, 14 lacking fire protection systems, and at least 17 in poor condition. “Many consular offices are failing to comply with Spanish occupational health and safety regulations,” the report warned.

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What does it mean when everyday debt is the most widespread reality for the population in Argentina? Well, a person goes into debt to buy food and medicine. They go into debt to pay rent, or to cover any emergency that pops up in daily life. They even take out lines of credit to pay off older debts.

Only by fully understanding the level of precariousness in Argentina — fostered by prolonged inflation and the fact that working-class people’s income is being eaten up by a slumping peso — can we understand how debt has entered people’s lives, becoming a veritable tool of survival. And, on a national level, the prevalence of debt has resulted in a new political mechanism: financial blackmail.

The fetishized notion of “financial freedom” — a promise of future business opportunities for a heavily-indebted population — has become a key element of the far-right’s government’s agenda. President Javier Milei’s administration has promoted new financial technologies (such as digital wallets), dollarization (as a hedge against inflation) and the elimination of all currency exchange controls. Of course, this has taken place within a new cycle of indebtedness, first with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and now directly with the U.S. Treasury.

The notion of “financial freedom” — despite its name — is organized in a restrictive, conservative manner. Such a policy is accompanied by state-sponsored anti-feminism, which allows authoritarian neoliberalism to intensify under fascist modalities. This manifests as a declaration of war — one supported by public resources — against women, ranging from the near-total dismantling of policies aimed at preventing gender-based violence, to President Milei’s verbal and digital attacks against female journalists and politicians.

It’s through state-led anti-feminism — which enables violence against women and LGBTQ+ communities — that the administration has intensified the authoritarian neoliberal project, organizing it according to the fascist logic of impoverishing and criminalizing certain populations. Retirees, people with disabilities and migrants are the latest targets.

Milei’s victory in the October midterm elections relaunched his image as the preferred politician of the U.S. advance into Latin America. That was the plan: Trump won him the election by offering the government a $20 billion bailout. His intervention wasn’t only financial, but also political. The statement that Trump made the day after the victory — published in all Argentine newspapers — served as a summary: Milei’s victory “made the U.S. a lot of money.”

The midterm elections — as a business transaction — encapsulated a political-financial operation: the promise of a U.S. Treasury disbursement as a “rescue package” for the Argentine economy, to keep it afloat amidst a new inflationary crisis.

Trump’s message was disseminated through both legacy and social media. He clearly stated that, if Milei’s party didn’t win the legislative elections, there would be no bailout for Argentina. This threat worked, as it was wielded against a precarious, heavily-indebted economy.

Is it possible for things to get even more chaotic than they already are, with prices fluctuating weekly, currency devaluations increasing monthly and multiple jobs becoming an everyday reality? The answer, in short, is yes: things can always get worse if inflation and the peso spiral out of control. Hence, Trump’s blackmail was highly-significant. And, to understand the reality in which this occurred, we must emphasize the strategic impact that financial matters have on daily life in Argentina.

This political chain of events culminated in November, with the signing of an agreement between the U.S. and Argentina. This deal includes incentives for the installation of U.S. data centers in the South American country. These facilities require enormous quantities of water to cool their systems.

Meanwhile, household debt is at a record high (a third of the population already owes more than they earn in three months), which is why the “financial stress” that seven out of 10 Argentinians report experiencing is now part of the media discourse. Added to this is the brutal deregulation of the economy: the price of rent, medicine and basic services are climbing month after month.

This economic fragility is existential fragility. The anarcho-libertarian project is an authoritarian form of capitalism, because it forces constant competition in the race against poverty.

The methods used to annihilate certain vulnerable populations have fueled so-called “economies of hate.” And the ways in which precariousness is managed can be key to the growth of authoritarian competitiveness — or, alternatively, they can result in people organizing themselves to insist on solidarity, cooperative and union-based forms of action.

The libertarian fantasies of Milei’s administration are based on the idea that it’s possible to live independently, without depending on anyone (protecting your home and your family, as a means of coping with a catastrophic future). But Milei’s platform cannot be understood without the element of fraud. That’s what the Argentine president has engaged in from his official social media account: he has promoted and encouraged investment in a memecoin — a cryptocurrency inspired by a meme — called $Libra

The president’s scam is part of an abstract idea of freedom that goes by the name of “financial freedom.” It’s based on the proliferation of financial tools, depicted as ways of aiding the population in the face of precariousness and currency devaluation — consequences of the IMF’s adjustment program, in place since 2018. Argentines are apparently supposed to fend for themselves as “permanent entrepreneurs,” to the point that they become speculators who bet on their own survival.

Meanwhile, the government buys time and provides stability to the financial sector, without managing to stabilize the actual economic crisis. The continued instability serves as an excuse to accelerate reforms (labor, pension and tax-related), implement decrees (for example, in the case of the mandatory collection of debts through electronic wallets) and hand over national territory to foreign companies (in favor of mining projects).

Globally, the rhetoric of “financial freedom” is linked to a propaganda strategy, with the goal of elites reaping rewards, as societies face declining wages and gutted pensions. In other words: as the elderly contend with uncertainty, social security suddenly becomes “financial freedom.”

In Argentina, the uncertainty is here and now. Hence, the ideology of individual responsibility — translated as “freedom” and “independence” — turns to financial language. This is done in order to displace issues such as impoverishment, inequality and, above all, uncertainty.

This uncertainty only intensifies as incomes decline. And this decline is orchestrated, like a veritable war being waged against the general population. The logic of cruelty becomes the status quo.

Organizing resistance against this cruelty — which uses finance as a weapon of mass colonization — is a difficult yet unavoidable task. It’s an attempt at true liberation, within a capitalist system that only bets on war.

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