Jail term halved for former Malaysian prime minister

Kurt Brown

In early February, Malaysia’s federal royal pardons board halved the original 12-year prison sentence for former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak convicted of corruption. In addition, the fines imposed on Najib were reduced to one quarter of their original amount, from RM210 million to RM50 million ($US10.6 million). The royal pardons board, comprised of the outgoing Malaysian king, the federal attorney general and four other ministers, gave no reason for its decision.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, centre waves as he arrives at the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya, Malaysia, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 2022. [AP Photo/Vincent Thian ]

The partial pardon of Najib follows around six months of bitter political infighting within Malaysia’s ruling elite—a continuation of the deep instability gripping Malaysian politics.

Najib was tried on corruption charges relating to the plundering of public funds from the Malaysian state investment fund, 1MDB. It was alleged that $US4.5 billion had been stolen from 1MDB, with approximately $700 million flowing into Najib’s personal bank accounts. In September 2020, 1MDB’s outstanding debts were estimated to be $7.8 billion, payable by the Malaysian government.

Najib was eventually convicted on seven charges related to laundering RM42 million from SRC International, a subsidiary of 1MDB. The conviction was appealed but upheld in August 2022, at which point Najib commenced serving his sentence, as well as launching a bid for a royal pardon. With his sentence halved, Najib could now walk free by August 2028.

Cynthia Gabriel, founder of the Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism, stated on X/Twitter: “A travesty of justice. Nothing less”. So far, leader of the opposition Perikatan Nasional (PN) coalition, Hamzah Zainudin, has said nothing. In April 2023, however, Hamzah stated that he supported a royal pardon for Najib.

Najib was leader of the right-wing United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). UMNO led alliances that ruled Malaysia from formal independence in 1957 through to May 2018. This was achieved through a combination of gerrymandering, autocratic methods of rule, domination of the media and state apparatus and the promotion of ethnic Malay chauvinism at the expense of the country’s ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities.

Najib was prime minister between 2009 and 2018. The shock collapse of UMNO in 2018 was due to anger stemming primarily from the 1MDB corruption scandal and stark levels of social inequality. The decision to halve Najib’s sentence further destabilises the already unstable political situation in Malaysia.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who leads the ruling Pakatan Harapan coalition government, denied any involvement in the halving of Najib’s sentence. In an interview with Al Jazeera, he unconvincingly declared: “It’s beyond the Prime Minister or the government. I respect the decision of the then-king.'

Anwar’s coalition, however, is highly unstable, with significant differences between component parties. It is dependent on UMNO, a member of the ruling coalition, to maintain a convincing majority in the lower house of parliament.

Anwar was installed as prime minister in November 2022 with the backing of powerful sections of the Malaysian ruling class, effectively tasked with undertaking austerity measures and pro-market restructuring.

Malaysians face rising prices, partly due to shortages stemming from the Ukraine war and a rapid fall in the ringgit. To partially alleviate cost of living increases, various subsidies were introduced during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Anwar government, however, has embarked on a program to remove subsidies and broaden taxes. This is to increase government revenue to pay off mounting debt. For example, chicken price subsidies were removed in October with prices rising by as much as 17 percent in November. Chicken is a staple protein in Malaysia.

The Pakatan Harapan coalition suffered significant losses in six state elections held on August 12, 2023, going from 144 to 99 seats out of 245 seats. The swing against the ruling coalition derived from widespread hostility over its failure to provide the economic relief promised during the campaign for 2022 federal election. As well, the opposition PN coalition ran a right-wing Malay chauvinist campaign, claiming that the Anwar government was eroding so-called Malay privileges.

In online commentary published on August 17, former UMNO health minister, Khairy Jamaluddin, speculated on the way forward for the ruling coalition. He noted that Anwar “could stick to the current path and head into the next general elections [due by late 2027] by working with UMNO and even consider recommending a Royal Pardon for former Prime Minister Najib Razak who retains considerable support within the party. Alternatively, he could effect a parting of ways with UMNO and adopt other options.”

Khairy, the son-in-law of former Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, was a former UMNO youth leader and a contender for party leadership until his expulsion by UMNO President Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in January 2023.

It appears that Anwar and Pakatan Harapan, at present at least, are following the first of the two options canvassed by Khairy by seeking to retain the services of UMNO in order to shore up support among ethnic Malays.

On September 4, 47 corruption charges against co-deputy prime minister and leader of UMNO, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi were dropped. This was at the request of the attorney general, citing the need to investigate the case in depth. In January 2022, however, the court noted that sufficient evidence had been presented by the prosecution for the case to proceed.

Within one week of Ahmad Zahid’s charges being dropped, an independent member of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, 30-year-old Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman, withdrew his support in favour of the opposition, citing concerns over corruption.

As a result of Syed Saddiq’s switching of allegiance to the opposition, Pakatan Harapan’s lower parliamentary seat count dropped to 147 out of 222. This was made up of 81 seats for those component parties closest to Anwar, 30 seats for the UMNO led coalition, 29 seats for the East Malaysian parties and seven seats for various independents. Crucially, this was one seat short of the two-thirds majority necessary for passing constitutional changes that the government has sought to maintain.

Two months later, a case filed in 2021 concluded on November 9 with Syed Saddiq receiving a sentence of seven years in prison, a fine of RM10 million ($US2.1 million) and a flogging, a first for a politician. This was for embezzling $200,000. The sentence has not been carried out pending appeal. Significantly, no pardon has been forthcoming for him.

On the same day, four opposition MPs were revealed to have switched allegiance to the government, exploiting a loophole in the Anti-Hopping law designed to thwart such practices. This law was championed by Pakatan Harapan in order to address the fact that the government changed hands three times between 2020 and 2022 due to the defection of MPs. The law came into effect on October 5, 2022.

Since then, two more MPs have switched their allegiance, one on November 28 and one on January 24, taking the government’s lower house vote count to 153 seats. Anwar has denied any involvement.

The switching has circumvented the Anti-Hopping law due to the fact that the MPs in question have not left their party and, instead, have stated that they will simply vote with the government. As an independent, Syed Saddiq is not affected by the law.

All six switchers have openly stated that their decision was prompted by a desire for greater federal funding, after having been starved of funding at the state and local level. On January 24, the last MP to switch, Zulkafperi Hanapi, said that “after a year without any [funding] allocation, I think this is one of the best decisions that most of the people of [the constituency of] Tanjong Karang want. They are struggling and squeezed by the high cost of living now and many need help so this is the best way for me to be able to function.”

Crucially, corruption charges and investigations have commenced against powerful sections of Malaysia’s ruling elite opposed to Anwar. On January 29, 2024, corruption charges were laid against Daim Zainuddin for failing to declare 71 assets such as several luxury cars, companies, properties and land.

Previously, on December 21, 2023, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) seized Ilham Tower, located in central Kuala Lumpur, as part of a criminal investigation against Daim and his family who are listed as owners of the building. The 60-storey building was completed in 2015 and is estimated to have cost $580 million.

Daim is an 85-year-old businessman who served as finance minister from 1984 to 1991 and from 1999 to 2001 under long-serving UMNO Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohammed. Daim and his family were named in both the Pandora Papers and Panama Papers leaks, which contained revelations about high-profile politicians and businessmen, particularly their financial interests in various tax havens.

In addition, Mahathir’s two sons are also under investigation by MACC, again stemming from the same leaks.

James Chin, Asian Studies professor at the University of Tasmania, stated that “it’s a smart move to go after Mahathir and Daim… Put yourself in Anwar’s shoes: the people that give you the most trouble are obviously Mahathir and Daim, people with money, so you go after them.”

With clear animus directed toward Anwar and his collaborators, Daim’s wife, Na’imah Abdul Khalid, warned, “power is brief and there is always a reckoning for those who abuse it.”

Commenting on the partial pardon for Najib, Francis E. Hutchinson, coordinator of the Malaysia Studies Program at the Singapore-based ISEAS, stated that “as long as it is neither a full pardon nor a full sentence, both camps can draw some comfort from the fact that it could be worse.”

The death of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny

Alex Lantier & Joseph Kishore

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. (AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov, File)

The death of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny in an Arctic prison on Friday has been immediately integrated into a massive anti-Russia propaganda campaign by the Biden administration and its NATO allies, along with their associated media outlets. Without an autopsy, let alone a fact-grounded analysis of the circumstances of Navalny’s death, the unified position from the NATO powers is: “Putin killed Navalny.”

US President Joe Biden declared on Friday that “there is no doubt that the death of Navalny is a consequence of something Putin and his thugs did.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken proclaimed that it “underscores the weakness and rot at the heart of the system that Putin has built. Russia is responsible for this.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, greeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Paris to sign a military alliance and offering him hundreds of millions of euros in aid, denounced Russia. Macron stressed his “anger” and “indignation” at Navalny’s death.

At the opening of the Munich Security Conference Friday, Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was invited to speak after the news broke. She was given a standing ovation from the assembled politicians and military officers from the NATO countries as she declared that, if news of Navalny’s death were true, “I want Putin, his entire entourage, Putin’s friends, his government to know that they will bear responsibility for what they did to our country, to my family, to my husband.”

Amidst this propaganda offensive, it is first necessary to stress that there is no precise knowledge as to how Navalny died. Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service reported that Navalny lost consciousness after a walk, and efforts to revive him were not successful. Navalny, according to these reports, may have died of a blood clot.

This would not absolve the Russian government of culpability. Navalny died in a Russian prison, and the Putin regime was responsible for his well-being and safety. This, however, does not warrant the claim, in the absence of evidence, that Navalny was murdered.

Therefore, it is necessary to reject the claim that is being made of his death by the imperialist governments.

One element of the propaganda campaign is the glorification of the deceased. Alexei Navalny was a “champion of democracy,” declared the Washington Post editorial board. “The greatest advocate for Russian democracy is dead,” ran an opinion piece in the British Telegraph. The Atlantic Council, which is closely connected to the US State Department, proclaimed that Navalny’s “martyrdom” will “magnify [his] moral leadership immeasurably.”

Navalny, however, was not a representative of a “democratic” faction of the Russian political system. He entered politics on the far right, joining the free market Yabloko party and its Union of Right Forces in 2000. In 2007, he co-founded the National Russian Liberation Movement, an anti-immigrant chauvinist outfit. In 2021, Amnesty International temporarily stripped Navalny of the designation it had given him as a “prisoner of conscience,” for advocating racial killings of people from Central Asia and the Caucasus, whom he once referred to as “cockroaches.”

Only after he entered into opposition to Putin did Navalny decide, for political reasons to find another more politically palatable basis, to choose the all-purpose banner of “anti-corruption.”

In the context of the bitter conflicts within the Russian oligarchy, Navalny represented a faction of Russia’s capitalist oligarchy that wants closer relations with the United States. Even in prison, Navalny still exerted sufficient support within the oligarchy to allow him to have regular access to social media.

If Navalny was murdered, there are many possible suspects, including some agency of the Russian state, acting with or without Putin’s knowledge. In recent months, the Kremlin has attacked many opposition figures, even if they had no short-term prospects in next month’s presidential elections. It has arrested left reformist journalist Boris Kagarlitsky and Stalinist candidate Sergei Udaltsov, and barred the pro-NATO liberal Boris Nadezhdin from running.

However, one would have to ask: Why would Putin take action against Navalny now? The Russian president has been working to ingratiate himself with a faction of the political establishment in the United States. His recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson was devoted largely to pleading for a negotiated settlement over the war in Ukraine. In the aftermath of the interview, Putin went out of his way to praise Biden, saying he would prefer his election to that of Trump.

If it were foul play, there are others who could be responsible, including factional opponents of Putin who see Navalny’s death as helpful for their own cause.

All of this, however, is entirely speculative. More important is how it is being used by the US and NATO powers, above all, the Biden administration, to intensify the campaign for an escalation of the war against Russia.

The immediate demand from the Biden administration, the Democrats and sections of the Republican Party is for the passage by Congress of a bill containing tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky himself has seized on Navalny’s death to call for more military assistance, amidst an intensifying crisis of the far-right government, which has been bled white by the imperialist-backed war against Russia.

Here, what is most striking is the staggering hypocrisy of the imperialist powers. Biden and his NATO allies furiously denounce the Putin regime’s treatment of Navalny, while subjecting Julian Assange, a genuine champion of human rights, to the most brutal and life-threatening conditions.

Assange has been kept in Belmarsh Prison, in southeastern London, under conditions that the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture described as “ill treatment, arbitrary detention and what could amount to psychological torture.” He was the subject of assassination plots orchestrated by the CIA. He has been systematically denied medical care and the ability to communicate, even with his lawyers. And next week he has a hearing that could decide his final appeal against extradition to the United States.

And what of the many prisoners still rotting in Guantanamo Bay, after decades of brutal detention and torture?

Biden cannot contain himself over the death of Navalny, and yet he is overseeing, arming, financially supporting and continuing to defend mass murder carried out by Israel. Those praising Navalny’s memory are political criminals whose invocations of morality deserve nothing but contempt. They are indignant at the alleged murder of Navalny, while arming the Israeli armed forces for the genocidal campaign against defenseless men, women and children huddled in hospitals, bombed-out homes and tent cities across Gaza.

Mounting economic problems for Chinese government

Nick Beams

The National People’s Congress (NPC) is always an important event in the Chinese political calendar, not because it involves genuine debate and discussion of policy, but because it is where the leadership of the government lays out its agenda for the year.

This year’s congress, which begins on March 5, will be particularly significant because the Xi Jinping regime confronts a worsening economic situation with no sign of a turnaround in sight.

Pedestrian walk across a traffic intersection near office buildings in the Central Business District in Beijing, Thursday, Feb. 8, 2024 [AP Photo/Andy Wong]

In broad terms, it comprises: the onset of deflation, a fall in the stock markets and worsening problems in the housing and real estate sector which contributes around 25 percent to the growth the economy.

On top of this there is the deepening economic offensive by the Biden administration, coupled with ever more overt military preparations and the recent threat by Donald Trump that he would impose a 60 percent tariff on all Chinese goods should he become president again, a very real possibility.

This time last year the government was banking that its lifting of zero-COVID public health measures would provide a “boost” to the economy even as it knew that millions would die. The deaths came—numbering up to 2 million—but except for a brief uptick in the early months of last year, the hoped-for economic revival did not.

The clearest expression of the economic downturn is the tightening grip of deflationary forces. Data published earlier this month showed that consumer prices had fallen at their fastest rate in 15 years in January, down by 0.8 percent year on year.

In was the fourth straight monthly fall and the largest decline since 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis which led to the loss of 23 million jobs in China.

Numbers of economists have warned that a series of economic indicators are “flashing red” and that if deflation is prolonged it will undermine consumer and business confidence, creating a feedback loop in which falling expenditure creates further deflationary pressures.

Deflation of consumer prices started last July with prices either flat or lower in every month, with the exception of August, since then. The fall in producer prices, those charged at the factory gate, has been even more marked. They declined every month last year and were down by a further 2.5 percent in January.

At the NPC, incoming Chinese premier Li Qiang will deliver his first government work report, setting out the government’s growth target, its deficit projections, and the overall direction for economic, social and foreign policies for 2024.

The growth projection will be carefully scrutinised amid conjecture that the government’s figures are overstated. Last year’s growth was 5.2 percent, slightly above the target of 5 percent—the lowest level in three decades. There is considerable doubt as to whether growth in 2024 will even be able to reach that level.

In the recent period, the government has rolled out some measures to boost the economy. But they have been described as piecemeal and far short of what is needed.

One of the main problems facing economic policymakers is the crisis in real estate and property development.

Since 2021, more than 50 Chinese property firms have defaulted on their debts, including two of the biggest, Evergrande and Country Garden. Evergrande was put into liquidation by the decision of a Hong Kong court at the end of last month and Country Garden, which had been touted as secure firm in contrast to Evergrande, defaulted last October.

According to a report in the New York Times (NYT), published at the end of last month, the downturn in property, “already the longest record, is not only dragging on—it is accelerating.”

China’s housing sales were down 6.5 percent for the year and in December plunged by 17.1 percent compared to the same month a year earlier.

In an indication of how precipitous the fall has been, Country Garden reported that presales of unfinished apartments fell for the ninth straight month in December and were down 69 percent from the year before.

Throughout the sector the completion of homes which have been paid for, either in full or in part, is a major problem as the companies building them run out of money.

The NYT article cited calculations by the Japanese financial firm Nomura which estimated there were 20 million presold units waiting to be finished that would require $450 billion in funding to be completed.

The government is trying to pressure financial institutions to come up with loans to property developers. Last month, Xiao Yuanqi, deputy director of the National Regulatory Administration, said they had an “inescapable responsibility to provide strong support” for the property sector. They should not cut off loans for projects in trouble but should find ways of supporting them.

But this injunction only points to the contradictions in government policy. The downturn in property and real estate, which has found its sharpest expression so far in the fate of Evergrande and the troubles at Country Garden, was set off in mid-2020 by the government decision to order the tightening of credit known as the “three red lines.”

This was prompted by fears that the growth of debt was unsustainable and would lead to a financial crisis if it continued and a decision that it was necessary to move away from the growth path based on real estate and infrastructure construction.

A note issued by Larry Hu, chief economist for the Macquarie finance group, cited in the NYT article, pointed to the vicious circle now at work. The debt problems of the property developers kept buyers away, fearing they will not get delivery of their home, while the fall off of new business only worsened the developers’ financial problems.

Echoing calls by others for the government to step in with a “big bazooka,” he said the main thing to watch was whether the government would intervene to stop the contagion by bailing out companies. Hu said the Chinese authorities should consider something like the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) developed in the US in response to the financial crisis of 2008.

A further complication is the fall in the stock market which, despite some temporary boosts as a result of government interventions, is continuing. Last month, the day after premier Li Qiang called for “forceful” measures to halt the stock market slide, more than 40 percent of attendees at a Goldman Sachs conference in Hong Kong said in a survey that they considered China to be “uninvestible.”

The government is clearly concerned by the slide which has seen the benchmark MSCI down by more than 60 percent from its peak in early 2021. Earlier this month the chair of its securities regulator was removed. No official reason was given but it was clear he was axed because of the slump in the market.

And unless there are some major initiatives by the government, the slide in the economy and the stock market looks set to continue.

Protests erupt across Senegal as President Sall cancels elections

Alex Lantier

Protests have erupted across Senegal after President Macky Sall announced on February 3 the indefinite postponement of presidential elections scheduled for February 25. Protests are continuing, with calls for demonstrations in the capital, Dakar, and other major cities after the Constitutional Council voided Sall’s election decree.

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On February 3, Sall cited conflicts between the judiciary and the legislature as well as the banning of key candidatures to declare that Senegal “cannot afford another crisis.” The government had banned many candidates, including both Ousmane Sonko of the middle class African Patriots of Senegal for Work, Ethics and Fraternity (PASTEF) party and Karim Wade of the Sengalese Democratic Party (PDS), the son of the previous president, Abdoulaye Wade.

Sall called for “an open national dialogue to create conditions for a free, transparent and inclusive election.” He proposed to remain in power until elections could be held no earlier than this December, in an extra-constitutional grab for power.

It marked the first time since 1963, three years after Senegal’s formal independence from France, that presidential elections were postponed. Throughout this era, the Senegalese regime has served as an instrument of French, US and NATO imperialist policy in Western Africa. Sall’s regime has been the center of French plotting to invade Mali, Niger and other Sahel countries who sought alliances with Moscow after France withdrew from its 2013–2022 war in Mali.

West Africa [Photo by PirateShip6 / CC BY-SA 4.0]

The opposition parties initially refused to take action against Sall’s power grab, organizing protests of only a few dozen people that were rapidly dispersed by police. “We must find new strategies with disparate actions across the country,” an unnamed politician close to the PASTEF-PDS coalition told Le Monde on February 7.

Union bureaucrats said that they were considering a general strike, but that they could not call one. Cheikh Diop of the National Federation of Workers of Senegal (CNTS) said: “The struggle to preserve an electoral process that respects the Constitution is imposed upon us. Creating a balance of power does not exclude a general strike, but we must take the time to go to the rank and file to get organized.”

Mass protests erupted however on February 9 in Dakar and across the country after calls for protests spread across social media. The Sall regime, which organized a wave of arrests before the protests, launched a bloody crackdown in which security forces shot and killed at least two young men, as well as firing upon dozens of journalists. Nevertheless, protests continued, notably in Dakar, in Ziguinchor where Sonko and the PASTEF have an electoral base, and in the northern city of Saint Louis where a student had been killed.

Photos circulated of demonstrators brandishing the Russian flag, to oppose Sall’s collaboration with Paris against Mali, Niger and other Sahel countries seeking alliances with Moscow.

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The French government, which is infamous for its relentless violence against social protests at home, issued a statement effectively endorsing Sall’s rationale for his attempted coup. “France reiterates its appeal to the authorities to organize the presidential election as quickly as possible,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said in a communiqué. Lemoine also called on Sall to “make a proportionate use of force” against protesters opposed to his coup attempt.

The protests have also panicked Senegal’s official bourgeois opposition parties, who are working to bolster the regime. On February 11, former Senegalese presidents Abdou Diouf and Abdoulaye Wade issued an open letter appealing to Sall for “national dialogue.” They called on the Senegalese people to “put an end to our differences and political crises.” They told the youth “to stop violence immediately.”

Sall has cut off mobile internet connections in Senegal and banned a nationwide protest called for Tuesday that the opposition parties then called off. Nonetheless, protests have continued in Senegal and also in the Senegalese diaspora internationally.

WSWS reporters interviewed protesters at a march in Paris against Sall’s coup attempt. Mustafa said: “We cannot accept this, so we are here to show our anger, to show to Macky Sall the great dictator that we do not agree. Sall had promised us a government in which everyone would feel better, where there would be equity and the justice system would be impartial. But we see that justice is served in his interests. The balance sheet of Macky Sall is negative, he has failed, he leads Senegal and there have been 80 people killed in demonstrations” while he was president.

He continued, “Income from natural resources are never redistributed to the population. From every standpoint Macky Sall has failed. It is disgusting, we don’t want him anymore.”

“Sall put the French back in position” in the region, Mustafa added. “But we are in solidarity with the Malians who were mobilized” to demand the end of France’s war in their country.

Mendy speaks to the WSWS in Paris at a protest against President Macky Sall's attempted coup in Senegal.

Mendy also criticized Sall for trying to join a French-backed alliance threatening to attack Mali, Niger and other nearby Sahel states to bolster French imperialist interests in the region.

Mendy said, “I would be surprised if Senegal joined the military alliance. You see already, in Mali, they don’t want the French and are allied to the Russians. This debate is starting to interest many people in Senegal. We would rather have the Russians as allies than the French, who have been in Senegal for so many years since independence in 1960. Of course we’re not against France being present in Africa, but it must be equitable. We must be able to benefit from the resources we have. We are not against France, but we are against France’s policies.”

Mendy noted similarities with the ongoing, NATO-backed Israeli onslaught against the Palestinians in Gaza: “The people of Gaza are victims. The Israelis are heavily armed, the Palestinians only have stones, so you see that it’s a totally unequal fight.”

He explained, “France does not want the natural wealth of Senegal to escape its control. They have lost Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, other countries. Now they are basing their policies on Senegal, and President Macky Sall is complicit in that. As far as I am concerned, it is Macron who is pulling Macky Sall’s strings.”

The struggle for democratic rights and against the prevailing, grotesque levels of social inequality can only proceed by a revolutionary struggle to transfer power to the working class and implement socialist policies. This struggle must be waged across the artificial national borders drawn up by the imperialist powers in Africa, and with workers in France and other imperialist powers. This requires a struggle for Marxist internationalism, that is, for Trotskyism, against bourgeois nationalist forces that seek to subordinate workers to the local capitalist elites.

The bitter lessons of the revolutionary uprisings of Egypt and Tunisia in 2011, as well as many other recent struggles across Africa, must be drawn. The political parties that promised to build a flourishing capitalist democracy proved to have no perspective besides hoodwinking the masses, and serving as a cover for reestablishing the dictatorships the workers had just brought down.

Currently, the Sall and Wade political dynasties are maneuvering with PASTEF to try to bring protests back under the control of the political establishment. Karim Wade announced on February 14 that PASTEF leader Ousmane Sanko is “in negotiations with President Macky Sall to rapidly obtain his freedom and that of other people imprisoned with him.” Echoing Sall, Wade said this would permit the holding of “elections on December 15 with a democratic, open, transparent and inclusive poll” to select the next president.

PASTEF portrays itself as radical, but it is a pro-capitalist party speaking for layers of the affluent middle class, hostile to socialism and workers power. It describes itself as a party of “young managers of the Senegalese public administration, the private sector, the professions, teaching circles and businessmen who, for the most part, have never been active in politics.” It promotes “a pragmatic doctrine, which does not identify itself with any historically known ideology: socialism, communism, liberalism, etc.”

Argentina’s Javier Milei’s “Instant Democracy” and Neoliberalism

Tom McDowell

Javier Milei, YouTube screen grab.

Self-described “anarcho-capitalist,” Javier Milei became the president of Argentina in December 2023 promising “drastic” measures to temper the inflation crisis that has gripped the country. In the weeks since his election, Milei has brought forward an ambitious neoliberal restructuring program encompassing almost every aspect of the government.

Milei’s agenda confronts considerable opposition in Congress, where his governing coalition, Libertad Avanza, holds only a fraction of the seats. To adjust to these circumstances, Milei has cultivated a strategy of “turbo-politics,” bypassing legislative processes that risk delaying the implementation of his state reorganization plans.

Milei’s approach to Congress is symbolic of a decades-old strategy I have elsewhere called “neoliberal parliamentarism.” This concept describes a pattern of deliberate efforts to reform or subvert legislative institutions as a means of facilitating neoliberal reforms that do not have sufficient popular support to be actualized through usual democratic channels. These changes, even when temporary, often leave long-term scars on institutions by weakening norms of institutional forbearance.

The Emergency Decree and the Omnibus Bill

Milei has followed this blueprint, insulating the core elements of his agenda from democratic influence. The dismantling of the Argentine state began in earnest in mid-December when the executive branch presented an 83 page Necessity and Urgency Decree (NDU) aimed at repealing over 300 various laws and regulations, facilitating the privatization of core public assets.

This “mega-decree,” Milei claimed, was necessary to “start to undo the huge number of regulations that have held back and prevented economic growth”. It includes sweeping economic deregulation, such as the elimination of regulations on Argentina’s supermarket laws, which required the guarantee of low prices on basic products. It also includes measures to eliminate rent controls. Suggested labour reforms to cut pregnancy leave and increase the job probation period were suspended by the courts in January 2024.

Less than a week after issuing the NDU, the executive branch sent a massive omnibus bill titled Foundations and Starting Points for the Freedom of the Argentine People to Congress for consideration. The bill bundles the major elements of Milei’s neoliberal restructuring initiatives under the heading of a single piece of legislation with 664 articles. It will enable the government to carry out, in a matter of weeks, what would normally take years to achieve if these reforms were considered independently and subjected to the usual legislative scrutiny.

Reforms from the 351 page bill include an extraordinary provision declaring a state of public emergency on matters related to the economy, fiscal balance, social security, defence, health, and administration.

The emergency declaration delegates more than 1,000 extraordinary powers from the legislative to the executive until December 31, 2025, with the possibility of a two-year extension. This provision would enable Milei to make major reforms without having to consult Congress, thus eliminating a major hurdle to the implementation of neoliberal reforms.

Authors of the bill are attempting to facilitate the privatization of 41 state-owned companies across various sectors including energy, aviation, port administration, and agriculture. They also enable the reorganization of public administration, including embedding regulatory cuts from the NDU into law.

Additionally, the omnibus legislation proposes substantial reforms to environmental protection laws. These changes include the weakening of the Glacier Protection Law, allowing the mining of sensitive “periglacial” areas. The bill is presently being rushed through the legislative process by way of Extraordinary sessions of Congress, leading to marathon sittings during Argentina’s usual summer recess period.

“It’s impossible for people to have an idea of the enormous number of proposals Milei has sent,” said Ricardo Gil Laverda, a constitutional lawyer and former Argentine Justice Minister. “They cover dozens and dozens and dozens of laws, often on deep topics.”

To influence negotiations, Milei has threatened to put forward a non-binding referendum if the opposition parties do not agree to the main terms of his restructuring plan. Milei has also threatened to take away social welfare rights from protesters who block streets.

Despite these efforts, however, the reality of Milei’s lack of Congressional support has led him to compromise on some elements of his agenda as it makes its way through the legislative process. Although the structure of the bill remains, opposition politicians have made more than 100 changes to it, including curtailing the scope of the President’s emergency powers to one year rather than two, and retaining YPF, the national oil and gas company, in public hands, despite allowing most other state-owned companies to remain subject to privatization.

Neoliberalism and the Decline of the Legislature

Argentina is not unique. This most recent example of legislative subversion is a familiar tactic used to accommodate neoliberal restructuring, that has been utilized repeatedly by neoliberal reformers in recent decades, including the IMF-sanctioned omnibus bill rammed through Greece’s parliament in 2014.

This approach to the legislature is the consequence of the political limitations of neoliberal policy, which is opposed by considerable segments of society. A blueprint for this strategy is spelled out by former New Zealand Minister of Finance Roger Douglas in his 1993 book, Unfinished Business. The book recalls lessons from his experience implementing a neoliberal agenda dubbed ‘Rogernomics’ in the 1980s against the headwinds of widespread social and political opposition.

Douglas claimed it is “uncertainty, not speed, that endangers the success of structural reform programmes.” Neoliberal reforms should not be passed incrementally, but as a rupture, moving in “quantum leaps” to overcome popular opposition.

Democratic processes are typically slow and deliberate, designed to enable the legislative body to scrutinize the executive, foster compromise, and encourage debate. It was necessary, therefore, to streamline the democratic process to ensure that politicians could neither interfere with, nor demand meaningful changes to, neoliberal reorganization efforts.

Neoliberal governments should confront the legislature, not as an essential element of the process of democracy, but an instrument used by politicians and vested interests to interfere with the operations of the marketplace. “Speed is essential. It is almost impossible to go too fast,” Douglas said. “Once the programme begins to be implemented, don’t stop until you have completed it.”

This tactic did not occur in a vacuum, but emerged intrinsically from the content of a neoliberal theoretical framework that views democratic institutions as an additional layer of state administration to be overcome. Neoliberal thought is deeply skeptical in the capabilities of reason to infer or predict causality. Given the limitations of the mind, society should be governed, not by conscious modelling and careful planning, but according to spontaneous or “invisible hand” forms of social organization, which are the outcome of independent, unplanned individual decisions.

This position is most clearly expressed by Friedrich Hayek, who claimed that parliamentary sovereignty was in fact the “root of the evil” in modern society, since it facilitated the growth of the state. Legislatures constituted one limb of what Milton Friedman called the “iron triangle” of politicians, bureaucrats, as well as corporate and individual special interests that were perpetually reliant upon the government for rents, and therefore had an interest in obstructing market reforms.

‘Instant Democracy’ and the Rise of ‘Neoliberal Populism’

What should we make of Milei’s approach to Congress, then? Is it reflective of a new pattern in neoliberal governance, or merely the extension of an old one? The answer is both. While Milei’s approach clearly shares categorial similarities with the neoliberal legislative blueprint built for speed, his blending of these ideas with a coarse, populist rhetoric grounded in anti-statism, signifies an intensification of these patterns.

Milei’s populist neoliberal worldview contributes to a rising trend among far-right governments around the world to use this rhetoric to rationalize the subversion of democracy. This kind of “neoliberal populism” conflates democratic institutions with political actors, claiming that they are instruments of obstruction for self-serving politicians and bureaucrats.

This is a view Milei has proudly declared. “For me, the state is an enemy, as are the politicians who live off it,” he said. “We will put an end to the parasitic, stupid, useless political caste that is sinking this country.”

Grounded in the same logic as neoliberalism’s conventional demand for freedom from the state, democratic institutions increasingly appear as impediments to the logic of the marketplace. The elimination of cumbersome legislative processes, then, removes the obstacles that restrain market forces, generating popular economic independence, and restoring common-sense. This inverts the logic of democracy, making it appear as though executive rule is necessary to protect the interests of “the People” from Friedman’s “iron triangle.”

The anti-parliamentarism at the core of the neoliberal theoretical outlook has increasingly transformed into a populist program that mobilizes a general dissatisfaction with politicians against democratic institutions as such. Neoliberal politicians, such as Milei, use this reasoning to manufacture the conditions for the ongoing use of emergency powers and the concentration of authority in the executive branch.

The global elite, sensing “the smell of a big privatization wave coming,” are said to be “infatuated” with his take-no-prisoners approach to Congress. Thus, although not a new phenomenon, Milei’s brand of “instant democracy,” which conceives of speed and flexibility as the essence of legislative governance, has the support of both the financial elite as well as a growing populist dimension, giving it the hallmarks of a burgeoning political movement of the most regressive kind.

As the institutional forbearance that restrained most neoliberal governments to stay within the confines of liberal democratic constitutional structures continues to give way to a logic that sees the legislature as subordinate to the market, it is likely that we will continue to see the erosion of democratic standards.