Argentina's Milei vetoes university budget after huge protests

Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early Thursday after a day of major student-led protests.

Thousands of Argentines joined the demonstration Wednesday in defence of the country's cherished public university system -- the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue.

The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, angered Milei, a self-professed "anarcho-capitalist" who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit.

While inflation has fallen, his spending cuts have been blamed for a surge in poverty levels, which affected more than half the population in the first six months of his presidency.

A huge crowd packed a vast square outside Congress in central Buenos Aires, where demonstrators waved placards reading "Without education for the people, no peace for the government" or "How can we have freedom without education?"

Ana Hoqui, a 30-year-old psychology graduate from a village 400 kilometers (250 miles) from Buenos Aires who was among the demonstrators, said she came to show support for a system which helped her study medicine.

"My parents sacrificed a lot so that I could come study at Buenos Aires University. I could never have trained without the free, public university system," she told AFP.

"That's why I came to defend it, because I feel it's in danger."

Protests were also held in several cities nationwide on Wednesday.

In April, hundreds of thousands of Argentines took to the streets in a first pivotal show of anger over Milei's policies after the government froze university funding for 2024 at the same level as 2023, despite persistently high inflation.

The government responded by increasing funding for university hospitals and infrastructure.

Presidential veto

At the center of the latest protests was a new law passed by Congress that provided for universities to receive regular funding increases, and for teachers and staff to receive salary increases to counteract the effects of annual inflation of 236 percent in August.

Milei vetoed the law, as he has done with other laws he opposes, after calling the salary increases for teachers "unjustified" and lawmakers "fiscal degenerates." His decision was published in the official government gazette.

That veto could however be overruled by a two-thirds majority in Congress where his party is in a minority.

While the protests were ongoing, Milei met with disgraced Wall Street trader Jordan Belfort, whose corrupt, excess-driven lifestyle was depicted in Martin Scorsese's "Wolf of Wall Street."

Belfort posted a picture of the meeting on X, captioned "two passionate advocates for free markets and individual liberty."