The candidates who will compete in the PASO guarantee the continuity of the adjustment against the working people as agreed with the IMF. Only the Unity Left Front raises its voice against this reality of more misery and decadence.
After the closing of the candidacies for the PASO from August 13, the reading of the big local and foreign businessmen, the international consultants and the IMF was coincidental: all happy, These are “pro-market” and “pro-business” candidates. Translated: any of them guarantees the continuity of the adjustment against the working people and the even greater adjustment that is coming from next December. This is a reality, be it Massa, Bullrich, Rodríguez Larreta or Milei who is elected as the next president.
The brand new presidential candidate and Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, will have to combine their roles. We do not know what he is going to promise in his campaign speeches, but we are clear that he will do in his executive function. His main task is to renegotiate with the IMF, for which he spends his time trying to convince Fund officials about the adjustment that has already been made.
The numbers do not let lie: between January and May public spending (subtracting inflation) was adjusted by 7.5% actual compared to last year. Social benefits were reduced by 9.5% and the mass paid for retirement and pensions fell by 5.4%. AUH payments fell by 14.2% in real terms and family allowances paid by dependent workers 39.7%. Capital expenditures (public works) were reduced by 20.6%. This is the concrete reality, with numbers of the adjustment that has already been made, demanded by the IMF. Its counterpart is the only item that grew this year compared to 2022: debt payments, which rose 17.8% in real terms.
As if all this were not enough, the terrifying horizon of debt payments is immediately in sight. Already expired on June 21 and 22, and therefore to be paid before the end of the month, there are 2,700 million dollars with the IMF. In July you have to pay another similar figure. At the same time, also in July, 1,000 million dollars mature with the private bondholders, from the exchange carried out by Martín Guzmán in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. And, finally, there will be another maturity in the first days of August for 700 million dollars.
If we add everything up, it gives 7.100 million dollars, which must be paid before PASO on August 13. And this is simply the path to the first post. What follows are more maturities, more payments, an almost certain renegotiation at the end of the year, new demands for greater adjustments and structural reforms, with attacks on pensions and the acquired rights of the working class.
Faced with this reality, there is only one dissonant voice, that of the Unity Left Front, in the formula headed by Myriam Bregman. Only the FIT proposes to stop paying the debt and break with the Fundto implement a worker and popular program that resolves the most urgent needs for decent wages, genuine work, education, health and housing. The other is the old trodden path with no way out, of more adjustment, misery and decadence.
Economist, p. re-candidate for Buenos Aires legislator for the Unity Left Front.
Source: Ambito
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