Unrest and tension in Congress: a broad opposition pushes ahead with a package of laws that complicate the government's lives.
The fight is no longer just with Kirchnerism. In the last week, the ruling party has entered into a dangerous and unpredictable tussle with allied governors and legislators who, until now, have acted as a protective shield against the opposition's offensives in Congress. This conflict, if not defused in time, could lead to the passage of laws detrimental to the fiscal surplus, with a majority capable of countering potential presidential vetoes .
The dispute is inevitably framed by tensions over electoral arrangements in the provinces and the decline in revenue sharing suffered, to a greater or lesser extent, by the governors. The allies maintain that the time has come for them to call in favors after a year and a half of putting their bodies on the line for governability in Congress. However, the Casa Rosada remains unmoved. It has warned that it will not sacrifice the fiscal surplus or distribute more funds to the provinces, and, convinced that it will turn the country purple in the upcoming elections, it will not open the La Libertad Avanza slate to the allies, except in a few exceptions, such as Buenos Aires.
The response to the government's snub was swift in Congress. With the support of the 24 provincial leaders, the opposition bloc leaders and allies in the Senate introduced two bills to share funds currently withheld by the nation. A veritable declaration of war . In parallel, the Chamber of Deputies will sign next week the resolutions to guarantee university funding and declare a pediatric health emergency following the conflict at Garrahan Hospital . President Javier Milei announced that he will veto all of these initiatives if they become law.
Kirchnerism is still closely monitoring the conflict. It smells blood . Since Cristina Kirchner 's prison sentence, it has radicalized its proclamations. Last Thursday He stormed the Budget Committee , which the libertarian Ezequiel Atauche had kept closed, and forced through the rulings on the bills for the restructuring of pensions , the extension of the pension moratorium , and the declaration of an emergency in public assistance for the disabled . All three have already received preliminary approval and, except for the pension moratorium, would be converted into law despite the threat of a veto.
José Mayans , leader of the Kirchnerist bloc, announced that he will request a special session for next Thursday . Astutely, Mayans wants to include the two bills sponsored by the governors to apply pressure. One of them proposes eliminating a series of trust funds so that the funds they fund are shared among the provinces; it also stipulates that 57.02% of the revenue generated by the fuel tax be transferred to the districts.
The other bill proposes distributing the National Treasury Contribution Fund (ATN) to the provinces "on a daily and automatic basis." This is a multi-million dollar fund : in five months it raised $365 billion, and so far this year, it has only distributed 20% .
"These are specifically allocated resources managed by the national government, but they are not its own. Therefore, it is clear that the proposed regulatory change does not affect national public finances ," the signing senators argued.
The Casa Rosada (Presidential Palace) wasn't surprised by the offensive, but for now it shows no signs of backing down . Its only strategy is to try to delay the coup . The legislative recess will begin in a few days, and it's confident that Congress will lower its shutters when the electoral campaign heats up in September. It hopes to count on the help of dialogue-minded governors— Alfredo Cornejo (Mendoza), Rogelio Frigerio (Entre Ríos), and Ignacio Torres (Chubut) —to prevent bloodshed before the elections.
The problem is that the state of tension is such that the conflict has already It has taken on a dynamic of its own, unpredictable and risky . The government doesn't enjoy the same credibility it did a year and a half ago; governors and allies accuse it of being a "bad payer" due to the pile of broken promises and the snubs they say they receive from the Libertarians. The discontent is unconcealable, and patience seems to have reached its limit.
"We've taken away all their laws, we've paid a huge political price to support the adjustment, they've completely cut off transfers to the provinces, they've invaded our territories, and on top of that, they've ignored us in the electoral process. Love has reached its limit ," is the unanimous complaint heard in the halls.
The Senate has become a virtual pressure cooker . “The situation is very complicated and is driven by the government's intransigence. There are no valid negotiators with whom to negotiate. That's how we got to where we are: 24 governors who until recently were divided are now united and defiant. This could have been avoided . Now any spark can start a fire ,” dramatizes a senator with undeniable ties to the ruling party.
It remains to be seen whether a special session will be called next week. The key to unlocking the chamber is held by Senate President Victoria Villarruel . The question is how long she can withstand the pressure from the blocs. The hardline opposition wants to hurry things along: they know that if these laws are vetoed by the Executive Branch, both chambers of Congress should insist before the legislative change , a time when the Libertarians will presumably strengthen their factions.
With the current composition, however, presidential vetoes are at risk . The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Martín Menem, will find it difficult to reunite the "87 heroes" who last year secured vetoes of the pension and university funding laws. The latest votes demonstrate a growing flight of allies to the opposition, but the ruling party isn't dramatizing it: they frame it within the framework of natural electoral tensions.
In any case, the repositioning of some allies, even those who were unconditional, is still striking. The MID deputies , who were part of La Libertad Avanza and are now part of the Pro inter-bloc, confirmed their distancing themselves from the Libertarians because "the adjustment has reached a limit." The Radical Party, which answers to Rodrigo De Loredo , who is close to the government, can no longer contain the half-dozen of its members who last week voted in favor of university funding and the pediatric health emergency. Even the "wig" Radicals of the League of the Interior, who supported the veto last year, are now proclaiming that the government should give some signal to the universities .
Even Cristian Ritondo , head of the Pro bloc, is struggling to contain his supporters; in the last session, a few, like Álvaro González and Héctor Baldassi , voted with the opposition, while others, loyal to Mauricio Macri , broke away from the bloc and stayed away from the vote so as not to reject the bills. The same attitude was adopted by the legislators who answer to Tucumán Governor Osvaldo Jaldo , the Peronist pampered by the government.
lanacion
