BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina’s lower house of Congress on Wednesday failed to muster the votes needed to reverse President Javier Milei’s veto of a law that would have shored up public university funding, a win for the libertarian leader after mass protests opposing his veto.
Last month, Milei vetoed a bill to update university funding in line with Argentina’s triple-digit inflation rate, one of the world’s highest. Thousands of people have since demonstrated against his cuts to education and healthcare.
Lawmakers voted 160 in favor of the university funding law with 84 against and 5 abstentions, falling six votes short of the two-thirds majority of those present needed to reverse the president’s veto.
Milei’s far-right party makes up only a small minority in Congress, but it has formed alliances with conservative lawmakers to prevent the opposition from gathering the two-thirds needed to ratify the law.
Milei argues the law would jeopardize a fiscal balance he has promoted to tackle the country’s long-running economic crisis, and has pledged to veto any law which threatens it.
Argentina’s health, pension and education spending have been the hardest-hit by Milei’s public cuts. The law vetoed by Milei would have adjusted public education budgets due to inflation; university salaries have lost around 40% of their purchasing power due to inflation.
Under Milei’s austerity drive, high inflation has started to slow, but Argentina is deep in recession and poverty rates have surged over 50%.
