Argentina lawmakers fail to overturn Milei veto of university funding

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) -Argentina's lower house of Congress failed on Wednesday to muster the votes needed to reverse President Javier Milei's veto of a law that would have boosted university funding, a win for the libertarian leader after mass protests opposing his move.

Milei vetoed a bill last month that would have updated public 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.

"What we saw today was a power struggle," conservative PRO party lawmaker Alejandro Finocchiaro told reporters. "If the presidential veto did not pass, it would have been a very bad sign for markets."

Milei argues that the law would jeopardize a fiscal balance he has promoted to tackle a long-running economic crisis, and has pledged to veto anything that 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%.

But opposition to the president's spending cuts, especially to education funding, still retains impassioned supporters.

"The right to public education defines our nation," opposition center-left UCR party lawmaker Facundo Manes said during the veto debate. "Education is the best economic policy of the 21st century, which is why we will not give up defending it."

(Reporting by Nicolas Misculin and Walter Bianchi; Writing by Sarah Morland; Editing by Chris Reese, Leslie Adler and Mark Porter)