Starting over after the impact of the elections in Buenos Aires

The main lesson from the Buenos Aires City elections is that all the slogans about the cultural war and the change of era have been refuted. It's not true that Milei's name is magical and draws crowds .

This had to be proven in his home district, where he waged the main battle for ownership of the national government against Macri, from whose demographics most of his officials and almost all of his government programs have emerged.

The legislative support for its measures and projects in Congress has also come from the Cambiemos group. Nor has there been any evidence that the main adversary, Peronism, has been divided or lost support at the polls.

To address these two lessons, the ruling party must invent strategic tools that will allow it to pass the October exam, in which the public —citizens, allies, markets—will decide how much confidence they have in the government's ability to ensure the future and sustainability of its programs.

In other words, passing the exam that Macri failed in 2017, even though he won that election. Democracy is a current that flows from the bottom up. It's a business where neither magic nor heavenly forces are of any use.

The results of the Buenos Aires City elections showed that Argentina has not yet emerged from the experimental path it embarked on in 2023.

The carom that brought Javier Milei to power took off after the defeat of the two coalitions that featured Sergio Massa and Patricia Bullrich as standard-bearers of a shambling majority that shifted its support to Milei to prevent Peronism from continuing in power.

In this scheme, the conservative candidate garnered 29% of his own votes, a feat he has repeated with his success with 30% of the votes for spokesperson Adorni in Buenos Aires City. The low number of voters invites the trick of measuring this support against the number of residents eligible to vote.

Support has dropped to 15%. In the face of this, Peronism was able to retain its usual votes, and the Macri administration's local government dispersed its support among at least five lists that, if combined, would have won the election.

Politics is about building majorities. The forces that competed in Buenos Aires only build minorities. Democracy in reverse. The only recall here is between Calamar and Globito.

The fragility of the experiment triggered an institutionalist surge across all forces to prepare for the consequences of the October result, which could be unbearable if they provoke a new setback like the one in 2023—a series of defeats for all forces.

This fever is the answer to the sudden agreement in the Senate to launch a debate this week to expedite the ruling on the reform of the National Audit Office.

The same applies to the appointment of more than 100 judges and prosecutors in the province of Buenos Aires. Auditors and magistrates are two bodies that emerge, here and around the world, from the division of positions among political forces.

Neither party wanted the appointments to be made after the October elections, when the political experiment has taken another wild turn.

The Supreme Court expansion project reactivated by Juan Carlos Romero in the Senate belongs to this institutionalist package. He is the virtual leader of "The Sect of the 38" (according to the nickname of Kirchnerist Fernández Sagasti), which unites the legislators who took control of the chamber in December 2023.

The ruling party of Olivos and the Peronist party are still restricting their participation in the committees, which had quorum problems last week. But their spokespersons embraced the reformist theme. They also want to use their last chances before December, when everything could change.

A careful calculation of gestures and words encourages the possibility that the reform of the Audit Office of the Nation will advance more quickly and successfully than the expansion of the Court.

Since December 2023, the government and Peronism have succeeded in eliminating all of the AGN's members, six of whom, according to law, are divided equally between the two chambers and whose terms have expired.

This leaves the government and its administration out of control and, incidentally, without a budget, which is the administration's main regulator. The AGN is chaired by Juan Manuel Olmos, representing the Peronist party (the main opposition). To patch up this inconsistency, Olmos has called on former auditors to serve on an advisory board.

Among them are Peronists Javier Fernández, Juan Forlón, and Gabriel Mihura Estrada, and Radical Party member Alejandro Nieva. It's a priceless gift for the opposition because the body must audit the accounts of Alberto Fernández's administration.

Olmos, deputy chief of staff in the previous administration, brought several officials from Alberto's presidency, such as Vilma Ibarra and Julio Vitobello, to the AGN staff.

Since taking office, the national government has prevented both chambers from appointing the three representatives, arguing two things: 1) that La Libertad Avanza has the right to have an auditor. This prevents the approval of last year's plan, according to the three deputies who would represent the PRO (Jorge Triaca), the UCR (Mario Negri), and the PJ (Juan Forlón); 2) that the law governing this subdivision is outdated because it represents the two-party system of the 1990s, and that the PJ and the UCR must coexist with other forces that have joined the representation spectrum.

To complicate the debate, Martín Menem signed a bill, whose authorship is unknown, that increases the number of representatives per House of Representatives to four and reduces the number in the Senate to two. The initiative earned the nickname "bottleneck bill." Neither chamber would ever reduce its representation.

Romero called the initiative "extravagant, not to say absurd." But he offered a shortcut: expanding the representation of each chamber to five. This is a way to make room for more partisan expressions, if the problem is the obsolescence of the two-party system—a mirage because Peronism and Radicalism are the only forces with extensive territorial representation and are, each, the linchpin of the two coalitions that have so far articulated the representation of the majority of voters.

In his explanation of the bill, the senator from Salta claimed co-authorship of the 1992 Financial Administration Law, one of whose chapters created the AGN, which served to justify his proposal for four or five members per chamber.

He explained this week: “When the Financial Administration Law was drafted—I don't like to be self-referential, but I reported on it based on a draft I had submitted and another draft the government drafted—senators served for nine years and presidents for six. So, the term was set at eight, halfway between the senators' and presidents' terms. So now that term would have to be reduced, and the halfway point between senators and presidents would be five. Most drafts stipulate four years, but it could be four or five years.”

The poor performance of the ruling party with its ideal electorate, the Buenos Aires City, forces a self-criticism of the government's way of presenting itself to the public. The snub to Congress forces it to resort to maneuvering to avoid setbacks.

It's true that Milei's personal agenda aligns with the Trumpist project of destroying the state apparatus. Don't ask her for what she won't give and won't give. She doesn't want oversight. That's why she gutted the AGN a year and a half ago. She also won't allow for the filling of positions unless La Libertad Avanza is given its own auditor.

He also inherited the Supreme Court's plan to harass and demolish the Peronist party, which governed until 2023. The Casa Rosada is angry with Romero because he "cut himself off" and pushed through an expansion project as if he should have been consulted. He also fails to respect the checks and balances that define the republican system.

But the passage of time makes it dependent on Congress. The cushion plan depends on tax reforms that cannot be enacted by a decree. The "cushion plan" requires a law that protects the statute of limitations on tax debts .

Current legislation requires taxpayers to keep tax records for ten years. The statute of limitations would ensure that a future government won't ask for these records to collect what they're currently being excused from their tax returns.

The statute of limitations requires a degree of certainty that only the vote of both chambers can provide. The formula must withstand the test of time, which requires review of everything, in addition to the approval of international anti-money laundering organizations.

Nor can it be passed by a single vote, like other important ruling party laws. The Society has the right to hold any public official accountable for their management. This week, the opposition is trying to hold a session to unblock the commission to investigate CryptoGate. The government has managed to block it to prevent Sister Karina from being summoned. Is that worth more than a "cushion" law?

The ideal of a government without oversight goes hand in hand with the dream of private auditing firms that could expand their business to replace the functions of the AGN. This agency has contracts with public companies to control their spending.

Without auditors in place, departments and the Executive branch itself will need oversight over the use of their resources, as required by international organizations and financial institutions.

This gap would be filled by privatizing the tasks . Former auditor Javier Fernández previously observed that the hiring of private accounting services has increased over time.

This week, Miguel Pichetto added the observation that "confidential" audit reports have also increased and called for greater transparency.

It's also worth noting that the AGN has triggered many corruption cases based on its investigations, such as the train purchase, the Once tragedy, Sueños Compartidos, the Vialidad case, etc. It's a tool that many would like to see deactivated, or seek revenge on for its accomplished work.

The Buenos Aires elections proved that the transition from Mauricio Macri's PRO party to Javier Milei's party has been confirmed in the Federal Capital, where both have their support base.

The rapprochement began before the 2023 elections, when Mauricio Macri brought Milei into the Cambiemos coalition and, unsuccessfully, introduced him as a pre-candidate for the Cambiemos primaries.

The president's snub of Jorge Macri put the finishing touches on the project of a "Macrismo without Macri" after the reversal of the Buenos Aires elections.

The new government's representation is weak, reaching only 15% of actual support. This implies that Argentina's more moderate and centrist political culture is resistant to the authoritarian ways and aggressive rhetoric of the new leadership.

The Te Deum episode should be read in the same light, because Archbishop García Cuerva's sermon gave voice and meaning to the silence of the electorate who had not turned up at the polls. Another rebuke for the president, who is struggling through the penitential process of his first two years.

Falling into a roll set by Lorenzetti was difficult to avoid due to the judge's subtle, Santa Fe-like skills. It's hard to outlast him for a round.

But what need did he have to go and stand before the altar in the same auditorium where Jorge Bergoglio, García Cuerva's mentor, mercilessly attacked Néstor Kirchner, who was president for Peronism and wielded a power that Milei wouldn't dream of even on a holiday?

The Te Deum is a ceremony that the government requests from the Church in order to receive something in return. The Foreign Ministry should have assured Milei a peaceful celebration. At one point, they even extended the courtesy of sending the president the text of the homily, out of respect. The Secretary of Worship has that role and is more of a representative of the religious faiths before the State than the other way around. He should have looked after the president. But in this government, they look after no one, not even Milei.