Scams, bribes, influence peddling, arranged interviews, private business and, surely, much more. The ‘principle of revelation’ that Javier Milei invokes so much was made effective by his tweet last Friday promoting $Libra, which uncovered a long-standing corrupt network that has as its protagonists the president himself, his most intimate entourage, i.e. his sister and the all-round advisor Santiago Caputo, but also involves ‘intellectuals’ such as Agustín Laje, journalists, etc.

Like an oil slick, the crisis surrounding the $Libra scam - a memecoin assembled in the crypto underworld - continues to spread and the scope is still not entirely clear. Milei was caught red-handed in a scam. From then on, a scheme was uncovered based on using Milei's popularity and then his position to promote business related to cryptos, with his sister and civil servant Karina Milei as ‘cashier’. A sort of SME family.

All this is more than enough to subject Milei to impeachment. He himself acknowledged his involvement and his ‘mistake’, which he attributed to his ‘techno optimism’, tried to treat it as a particular issue when he propagandized it as a benefit for the Argentine economy without ever being able to explain what it was.

 Political crisis

Pollsters are trying to measure the extent to which Milei is affected by this crisis in the electorate's mood. Depending on who is doing the polls and which journalist is reading them, we will have different interpretations.

The truth is this. Milei's authority and his anti-caste profile have been indisputably damaged. The scope of this damage goes beyond Argentina, the scam has been a blow to cryptocurrency speculation because of the evidence of the risks that exist, Milei himself equated it with the casino and Russian roulette (sic) in his failed interview with Viale. Hundreds of complaints are piling up in the Argentine courts, but above all in the US courts, which Cúneo Libarona - the minister and lawyer who, according to Milei, will draw up the strategy for his defense - does not control, as he does with the Anti-Corruption Office.

It is not clear how much all this affects Milei's ability to continue disciplining the opposition and to confront even the demands of sectors of the capitalist class itself. What is clear is that the bourgeoisie is willing to support him. That is why the darts are aimed at the ‘environment’. And here the rot has broken out within the ruling party itself. Francos has come out against Santiago Caputo; the journalist Cristina Pérez, wife of the Minister of Defense Petri, implied -with insinuations- that her tarot-reading sister was part of the corrupt plot; several libertarian candidates have vented the obligatory contributions with which they bought their place on the lists and they point directly to Karina Milei.

A separate mention should be made of the fight between the journalists who defend and operate for the government, who took advantage of Viale's ‘setback’ to expose a network of bribes and kickbacks. They are the same ones who have been at the forefront of infamies against the Polo Obrero and against Chiquito Belliboni in particular so that there will be a conviction, with the services' operettas, insults and trumped-up evidence, while they hide all the evidence of the Polo's defense.

The ‘iron triangle’ is in the crosshairs. That is where Macri and the bourgeois’ opposition are aiming. That's why Santiago Caputo's ‘interruption’ in the interview is demonized to the point that it is being agitated as a reason for him to leave the environment. The ‘adviser’ manages nothing less than the official intelligence services. The battle could be bloody. It is all evidence of a strong political decomposition.

 On the rainy, wet stuff: IMF negotiations

We cannot lose sight of the fact that the Argentine capitalist crisis is part of the global crisis. Cryptocurrencies are an extreme expression of expanded fictitious capital that not only does not go to Argentine SMEs as Milei promised, but on a global scale they are divorced from any productive investment whatsoever. Let's point out that if Milei's simil meme coin lost 95% of its value, Trump's lost 80% and Melania's lost 70%. If it's gambling, it's gambling and the facholibertarian pushed thousands into the abyss.

In the midst of the crypto-scandal, a sharp recession, a fall in consumption, and calls for a devaluation, Milei is travelling to the United States. In addition to participating in a conservative summit led by Trump, he and the Minister of Economy will have meetings with the IMF in order to close an agreement that is being held up above all by the Fund's demand to move forward with the liberalization of the exchange market and produce a devaluation.

The government, which is unwilling to do so because it would be a passport to an electoral defeat - at the very least - is facing serious problems with its policy, which have caused the country risk to rise, among other things, when the $Libra-gate and the lawsuits in the US courts have not yet produced major shocks, a sign that there is still a bet on sustaining Trump's Argentine friend.

The main problem is that reserves are still negative and the tools to restore them are not advancing -such as the temporary reduction of withholdings- and meanwhile the government is spending dollars -according to the consultancy firm 1816, in January it was U$S 772 million- to avoid a widening of the exchange rate gap and sustain the carry trade, which in turn has been showing signs of stagnation. The Treasury's January tender only renewed 75% of debt maturities, and in February the rollover was 78%. In order to sustain this scam, the government is said to have dipped into the Sustainability Guarantee Fund, that is, with the money of the pensioners it bought shares and bonds, etc. Monetary issuance will end up being the way out to meet the maturities of the scam, and new transfers had to be made to avoid exhausting the stock of liquidity that the Treasury has deposited in the Central Bank.

Milei and Caputo want the IMF to throw 15 billion dollars at them - as the president said in the TN interview - but it seems difficult for the Fund to risk ‘freely available’ resources that the government can use to sustain the depressed dollar and favor a bicycle that helps capital flight.

The commitments adopted by the duo will be a mortgage for the Argentinean people with a new blow to wages, with an advance in working conditions, with a cut in funds for health and education and, as the sacked head of the Anses announced, a draconian pension reform.

 Impeachment, Milei out

The conclusion of this scandal is that Milei is at the head of a government of a group of swindlers, bribers and shysters. The evidence of this is there for all to see, it is abundant, and in one week it has surfaced by the dozen. There is no doubt that Milei should be impeached and removed from office, and popular mobilization must impose this objective.

Our deputy Vanina Biasi, together with Monica Schlotthauer, has filed a request for impeachment in the Chamber of Deputies to organize and promote popular mobilization. The request for an interpellation is a minor step that has no destination if the objective is not an impeachment trial. The proposal for an investigative commission - a proposal of the radicals and a sector of the PRO - is an unjustified delay, the evidence is sufficient to bring Milei to trial and remove him from office, it is a clear attempt to save him. Kirchnerism's request for impeachment does not seek to promote mobilization, it has a ‘propagandistic’ character, warning that the two-thirds majority in the chamber will not be enough to carry it forward.

Finally, Kirchnerism is responsible in the Chamber of Deputies for the DNU 70/23 - the basis of Milei's policy - remaining in force, and gave it a great legislative triumph a week after the massive mobilizations of February 1st against the proto-fascist declarations in Davos. Now he is preparing to give it a triumph in the Senate with the suspension of the Paso, at least. Now he is preparing to give it a triumph in the Senate with the suspension of the Paso elections, at least. Not to mention the role of the Peronist trade union bureaucracy, which in addition to agreeing to lower wages and being in negotiations to move forward with the precarious labour reform, has not opened its mouth in the week that the crypto scandal has been going on.

The crypto-scandal reinforces the idea that the defeat of the government is a necessity for the workers, because the consequences of its policies are measured in the growing deterioration of their living conditions, in the collapse of wages, in the attack on pensioners, in the loss of important gains, in the subjugation of rights won through struggle, in public freedoms. It is a government of aggression against the working people, the youth, women, diversity, migrants, the disabled. Our demand for impeachment is part of the campaign that the Partido Obrero has been supporting: Milei out, a slogan for action, which had a strong impact on February 1st. A proposal to organize the workplaces, the places of study, the neighborhoods’ and to prepare the general strike that will defeat the government.

March 8 will surely be an opportunity to put on the streets a massive repudiation of the government and the defense of all popular demands.

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