The shortest week of the year can turn out to be the longest. And the most important. The government will have a second chance on earth to demonstrate whether or not it has the desire and ability to build a parliamentary majority that will allow it break the spell that limits him: He has an electorate and a Congress that support the music of his program, but who contradict him in the letter when he asks for extraordinary powers to continue to govern beyond accounting.
Next Friday, three members of the Nation’s General Court of Auditors will resign and the Chamber of Deputies will have to provide replacements for the mandates starting on Monday 8 April.
This simple news item gives the government the opportunity to express: 1) whether it wants a legislative agreement that guarantees equally positive votes as the 144 positive votes that the future omnibus law received; 2) reveal with whom[es] he wants that deal; 3) whether he is willing to keep an open door with Peronism or will promote an alliance of the four dialogue blocs, which leaves Unión por la Patria out of the AGN and maintains the three seats left vacant.
The week proposes other turmoils decisive for the immediate future of the government. This Monday, the meeting of the most contentious front of governors begins in Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego. They are those from the provinces of Patagonia, who reject the flags dearest to the party in power, such as the restoration of the Profit Law, and who have already launched reforms of the fishing activity regime.
The meeting continues on Tuesday in Ushuaia behind a blanket of fog due to the evocation of the Malvinas. To close the week, Government leaders will receive the governors in Buenos Aires on Thursday who are at the opposite end of the spectrum, the dialoguers who in the last elections have oscillated under the motto “Together for change”.
He made everything clear: they are orcs because they are orcs
He will manage the replacements in AGN a color x-ray of the demons that animate the party in powerabove the strident – if superficial – slogans that come from the president’s lips.
For example, when he says that “we didn’t like the digital age”, but receives setbacks from analogues Tolosa Paz (debate on salary increases) or Martín Lousteau, who threw him off the DNU and made him kneel for approve the list for the candidate for ambassador to Israel.
Or when exalted as a triumph”organize the Argentine ideological spectrum” (?). He said it in his speech in front of local and foreign entrepreneurs who listened to him at the Four Seasons forum organized by José Luis Manzano’s investment fund, nicknamed “Cototo” by his friends, and “Chupete” by those who don’t know him .
In that presentation he took aim at Congress, describing it as a “group of criminals”. He called them “ogres” and condemned them with an irremediable tautology: he spoke of “ogres, who since they are ogres cannot expect anything other than ogre behavior, because they are ogres”. Clearer water.
After he left the speech, there were foreign businessmen who mobbed their local hosts for clarification on what he meant and whether he was referring to Congress. They did it in improvised environments such as confessionals.
Some have expressed their confusion. In countries like the United States, a “congressman” is a respectable figure. When they ask for legal certainty, they mean that they have the backing of laws that make projects sustainable. They don’t understand governments arguing with congresses. The Creole answer is that “the president is a very special person.”
Martingale for the AGN
Mathematics governs and says this Whoever collects 129 votes can nominate the three vacant posts of the AGN. It is unthinkable that the government would dare to propose an alliance of La Libertad Avanza with the PRO, the UCR and Hacemos (Pichetto bloc) to advance with 100 seats out of Peronism’s 99.
The fate of the review would be in the hands of a remnant of legislators who have no government duties and have little interest in what happens in the AGN. That is, they can negotiate their support without much to lose and with a high reward.
It is also unthinkable that the Milei bloc seeks an alliance with Peronism and negotiates the names of the three auditors with 140 votes. This would break any alliance with the PRO, UCR and Hacemos.
Outside of these fantasies, which are realities as well as threats, it is plausible that everyone agrees to distribute the three according to the regulatory indication, which requires reflecting the composition of the Chamber.
This control which is renewed now, for this year and next, with three more replacements in the Senate, will examine the action of Alberto Fernández’s government.
Mileist deputies could use the 41 votes they have to agree on a name with the PRO, the party with which they co-govern, and leave one for radicalism. This martingale would recognize Peronism with the third reviewer. Peronism is the first minority in the Chamber and claims two of the three in play. As long as they don’t leave you anything, you can give them up.
The radicals with the key to the Senate
Furthermore, it is not plausible that mileism would leave UCR without an auditor. Today the ruling party has become dependent on the party chaired by Lousteau to maintain control of the Senate.
The Peronism of the José Mayans bloc declared itself in revolt, they do not agree with the integration of the Commissions and refuse to sign any opinion until they have satisfied their request for more members.
With this rebellion they will hinder all sentences until further notice, which are essential for the projects to go ahead. Without the signature of the radicals nothing gets accomplished, as demonstrated the week before by their capitulation to Lousteau regarding the agreement on the appointment of the ambassador to Israel.
Lousteau refused to sign it after arguing with the candidate, Rabbi Axel Wahnish, about the possible consequences of moving the Argentine embassy in Israel to Jerusalem on sovereignty claims in the Malvinas.
Wahnish was left without a deal due to disagreement with Lousteau. On the day of the hearing, the Agreements Commission had two absences of senators who could have joined, Maxi Abad and Ezequiel Atauche, representative of Libertad Avanza. They were travelling.
Silence is health
The government immediately raised the sails and agreed to have Foreign Minister Diana Mondino receive Lousteau to make it clear that the country will never take any measure that could weaken its claims towards the Malvinas. Lousteau listened and magnanimously let her refusal fall.
The ambassador candidate met, after Mondino’s visit, Maxi Abad, Guadalupe Tragliaferri and Francisco Paoltroni of Formosa. The rabbi presented the same concepts as Mondino and the hosts responded as follows What the Agreements Commission examines are the personal abilities of ambassadors, not government policies.
Since the issue of the Malvinas and the embassy in Jerusalem are decisions that fall to the government, the time will come to discuss the instructions that the ambassador will receive. Milei contributed a new method: he remained silent and refrained from insulting Lousteau as he had done when he voted against DNU 70.
This allowed for a political dialogue that saved the ruling in favor of the rabbi. What this episode reveals is the need for the government not to anger the radicals, who hold the key to decisions. Moreover, Lousteau’s gesture served to make Milei surrender in front of his office.
A president who claims to be the only one who understands what is happening demonstrates with his counter-marches that he undertakes announcements and measures without any prior reflection or analysis. He seems to walk in the sun of the children’s song that sings “María la paz, la paz, la paz, un paso p’atrás, p’atrás, p’atrás”.
Selective memory
It also reveals how much the anger of the Peronists can cost the government. The Senate holds the key to approving the appointment of new judges of the Supreme Court and the Attorney General’s Office.
The government believes it has given them a lot by saving them from pillory and ridicule. The silence on corruption allegations against officials of the previous government is one of the highlights of this administration. In this there is a change of era, as the banal say.
Corruption charges are tools that politicians of all governments use to demolish the prestige of their adversaries, here and around the world. Damaging prestige is a very profitable goal, regardless of how these corruption complaints thrive in justice.
It is enough that they have an effect on public opinion. One of the novelties of the Milei administration is that its control over the inheritance received has been limited, to date, to complaints and reports of misgovernance, waste or abuse in the management of resources. But no one was allowed into the patrol car.
Everyone talks to everyone
The negotiations for the AGN take place in the strictest secrecy, but are more intense than those motivated by the DNU and those carried out by some national officials with governors and legislators for the short, already omnibus, bill. Everyone talks to everyone and all possibilities are measured. Leaving anyone out would be a future danger.
Each sector already has its own short list of candidates. To name names is to put them into question and at the mercy of the antibodies that always intercept every initiative. Breaking with friendly blocs would be a costly mistakeand that’s why La Libertad Avanza is the block least likely to name.
He will most likely arrange one with the PRO. He will certainly be a man more than close to Macri. There are accounts of his presidency that are awaiting review. This makes the AGN something of direct interest to them.
Before now, in 2020, when he was able to include people in this body, he chose mayors who were not from the PRO. One was Gabriel Mihura Estrada, who filled the position that the PRO entrusted to Sergio Massa to honor the alliance they had in the first year of the Cambiemos government.
The other was Miguel Pichetto, who had been his running mate in 2019 and who replaced Jesús Rodríguez, who took over the presidency of the AGN. The election of the radical as head of the AGN was also welcomed by Macri. It’s about time there was a PRO in the AGN.
Source: Clarin
