After a bumpy start for the Law Bases in it Senate, yesterday, and while speculation grows about the possibility of the project returning for review to the Chamber of Deputies, the Secretary General of the Presidency, Karina Milei, This morning he summoned the president of the PRO block to the Casa Rosada, Cristian Ritondo, without prior notice, and accompanied by her main political advisor, Eduardo “Lule” Menem.
Hermetica, the sister of Javier Milei He did not indicate the reasons for the call, in which the Minister of the Interior conspicuously did not participate. Guillermo Francos, the Government’s main negotiator, because he had another activity. However, at the Casa Rosada they stopped short: they said that the meeting had been scheduled since last week, and that I just wanted to “get to know him” after the careful work they did so that the most important project for the Government obtained the half sanction. President Milei had already outlined some messages of recognition, via X, on the day of the debate, especially to Ritondo and his colleague, Silvina Lospennato. But his relative and main collaborator wanted to do the same today, again and in person, in a new gesture to strengthen the parliamentary alliance.
Low and behold, the Government admits that There are serious chances that the Bases bill will suffer requests for changes in the Senate, where it began to be debated yesterday in a plenary session of commissions with presentations by ministers and secretaries of Milei. Which would imply that be forwarded, for review, to the Chamber of origin. The numbers would not be there either to approve the complete fiscal package, so the discussions would extend beyond what the Government wanted, and the eyes would once again be focused on Deputies and, therefore, on the allied bloc again.
A setback in the reviewing Chamber would not necessarily be a defeat, because the law could be passed anyway. But it would inevitably represent a setback and in the last hours the Government began to once again weigh the balance of forces in the previous parliamentary instance.
A specific chapter appears as central in both Chambers: that of taxes on tobacco companies, which the Government had included in the legislative package, but then withdrew to prevent it from complicating the rest and which was forced to reincorporate due to a majority request urged by the Civic Coalition and a sector of the UCR about the end of the vote on Tuesday of last week. Ritondo and company voted against, like the libertarians.
The talk between Lule, Karina and Ritondo lasted for an hour, and in Mauricio Macri’s party they said that it served to “lay the foundations for joint legislative work.” It could be a first approximation towards an interblock between PRO and LLA, although there were no definitions in that sense. Until now the ruling party resisted this move, to the point that the former president of the libertarian bloc, Oscar Zago, who had fought for that political formula in Parliament, was expelled from his role at the request, precisely, of Karina Milei.
Today’s talk will continue tomorrow, when Lule Menem receives other PRO deputies, also at the Government House (it is not ruled out that Karina will also participate). “It will be to start laying out an agenda for the future. We are not a government but we have our own agenda, with issues that we have been working on for years, such as the Single Paper Ballot or the voting abroad of Argentines,” they said in PRO. They believe that the Government can enable the treatment of those lawsand they assure that they will seek to address “more specific, work” topics.
In addition to the parliamentary aspects, there is pending define the political future of the relationship between the official force and the main ally. PRO’s help is not disinterested, and its leaders expect from the Government, in addition to thanks, signs of commitment to a more formal alliance. In fact, they have already warned that they will not necessarily repeat their collaboration when the Executive sends its next initiatives to Congress. In Balcarce 50, however, for now they have not given concrete signs and are limited to talking about an eventual electoral alliance next year, always subject to the evaluation of their own convenience.
