The negotiations with the Peronist, radical and PRO governors were another of the strategies outlined by the Casa Rosada to obtain votes, abstentions and absentees in the debate of the Chamber of Deputies to support President Javier Milei’s veto against university financing. Two particular cases were those of deputies Yolanda Vega (Salta) and Alejandra Torres (Córdoba); who suffered part of the illness to miss the session and facilitate the ruling party’s strategy.
Vega is one of the legislative bishops of the Salta governor Gustavo Sáenz and is a member of the Federal Innovation bloc, made up of deputies who respond to the leaders of the provincial forces of Misiones, Río Negro and the northern province. The president of the block is Pamela Caletti, who voted against the veto, like her other colleague from Salta Pablo Outes. The third representative from Salta in the block is the one who was absent.
As emerged from the halls of Congress, Vega “decompensated” shortly before the session, something that ended up favoring the official strategy. Milei’s relationship with Sáenz – who once served as the dolphin of Sergio Massa’s Renewal Front – has been strengthened since the beginning of the year, like that of other governors of the so-called North Grandeamong them Osvaldo Jaldo from Tucuman and Ricardo Jalil from Catamerque, who supported the government’s legislative initiatives this Wednesday and repeatedly.
The pact with the Casa Rosada was sealed last June, when Sáenz visited the president with his peers and gave him the characteristic Salta poncho. The Federal Innovation bloc also gave the government four abstentions: Alberto Arrúa, Carlos Fernández, Yamila Ruiz and Daniel Vancsik, all missionaries who respond to Governor Hugo Passalacqua; and the boss Carlos Rovira.
The other absence due to illness was that of Alejandra Torres, the Córdoba representative of Encuentro Federal, the bloc led by Miguel Pichetto. The bloc voted in favor of university funding and against Milei’s veto; with the exception of Torres and two other absentees: Jorge Avila (Chubut) and Ricardo López Murphy (CABA), the former Minister of Economy of the Alliance who sought to privatize the universities.
“Because I am experiencing health problems, including COVID, I will not be able to attend tomorrow’s session (for today), where we will debate the veto of the University Financing Law,” explained Torres, a legislator linked to Governor Martín Llaryora and, in particular, to former governor Juan Schiaretti. In fact, her husband Osvaldo Giordano was appointed head of the Anses as part of the agreement between Milei and Schiaretti and expelled from the government after a dispute over networks.
After the failure of the Omnibus Law, Milei shared a tweet in which he asked for Giordiano’s head for being the husband of Torres, who had voted against the first version of the Bases Law; who did not undergo treatment at the facility.