Argentinian President Javier Milei Shutters Ministry of Culture

Javier Milei, who in November was elected president of Argentina, has ordered the closing of the country’s Ministry of Culture. A hard-right libertarian economist and former tantric-sex coach who beat out center-left former economic minister Sergio Massa thanks largely to the votes of young jobless men disillusioned with Argentina’s decades-long financial stagnation, he had made the closure of various ministries one of his campaign promises. Just one day after his December 10 swearing-in, Milei announced on social media that he had signed a decree slashing the number of Argentinian ministries from nineteen to nine.

The Ministry of Culture will be subsumed under the newly created Ministry of Health and Human Capital, which will also absorb the former Ministries of Health; Labor; Social Development; and Women, Gender, and Diversity. The former Ministry of Education, which Milei earlier publicly decried as the “Ministry of Indoctrination,” will also be incorporated into the new ministry, which will be helmed by onetime television producer Sandra Pettovello, a Milei loyalist. A second new entity, the Ministry of Infrastructure, will absorb the former Ministries of Public Works, Transportation, Energy, Mining, and Telecommunications.RelatedLOUVRE RAISES TICKET PRICES BY NEARLY 30 PERCENTAMY HAU TO LEAD NOGUCHI MUSEUM In his maiden speech, delivered before the country’s legislature, on whom he turned his back in order to face his supporters, Milei outlined the measures he planned to take in order to right Argentina’s economy, which is beset by annual inflation of 140 percent, a 40 percent poverty rate, and $45 billion in debt owed to the International Monetary Fund.

Planned actions include cutting the country’s budget by 5 percent and abandoning the Argentine peso in favor of the US dollar, though Milei—who had also promised to dissolve the country’s Central Bank but then tapped one of its former presidents, Luis Caputo, to serve as his economy minister—appears to have walked back the latter measure, at least temporarily. This is not the first time the Culture Ministry has been the target of a right-wing president. Conservative president Mauricio Macri prompted anoutcryin 2018 when he slashed the organization’s budget and reduced it to a secretariat.

The ministry was restored in 2019 following the election of Alberto Fernández, a Peronist..