The Buenos Aires governor – and today the main opposition figure to President Javier Milei – Axel Kicillof, will return to the local agenda after his two meetings with Pope Francis in the Vatican. An international agenda that occurred at the same time as the debate on the Bases Law in the Senate of the Nation and that Kicillof followed thousands of kilometers away with his Minister of Government, Carlos Bianco and his Chief of Advisors, Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez. From Rome, and after sharing his feelings about having met Francisco, he continued to question the initiative that had been narrowly approved in the Senate thanks to the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Victoria Villarruel and in the midst of a climate of tension in the street. Already on Argentine soil, he planned some meetings with his Peronist peers.
Without a defined date yet, Kicillof will travel to the provinces of La Rioja and La Pampa. He will sign cooperation and management agreements like those he already made with Maximiliano Pullaro de Sante Fe (UCR) and Nacho Torres (Chubut), two governors of the so-called dialogue opposition. At the time, the incursions and photos of the Buenos Aires president were looked at askance at the time within the framework of the internal conflict that Peronism was going through – and going through -. There were two meetings in the same week.
In La Pampa, for example, it is expected that there will be agreements regarding cooperation and assistance in rural patrol based on the acquisition that Buenos Aires made of ten Chinese drones. “In La Pampa they were interested in the issue and it is giving us results to combat rural crime,” they assured Infobae from the Ministry of Security commanded by Javier Alonso.
The meetings with Sergio Ziliotto (La Pampa) and Ricardo Quintela (La Rioja) also take place within the framework of the life of the national Justicialista Party that called internal elections for November 15; a call to which the Buenos Aires PJ chaired by Máximo Kirchner also agreed, who that day will also renew -or not- authorities. Kicillof is one of the vice presidents of the Justicialist Party at the national level. His name emerged as a possible candidate for the party presidency; something that, strictly speaking, does not seduce the president too much in personal terms.
The last Congress of the national PJ that called elections for November 15 (Maximiliano Luna)
Ziliotto, Quintela and Kicillof form a trident of tough opposition to Milei, except that due to his political weight, Kicillof’s voice tends to have more echo. Of the three senators representing La Pampa, the Peronist -Daniel Bensusán- voted against the Bases Law. While the representatives of La Rioja -Florencia López and Fernando Rejal- also opposed it.
In La Plata they describe the balance of the governor’s trip to the Vatican as more than positive, mainly because the official audience on Thursday morning in Rome – which lasted 45 minutes – was joined by another off-the-schedule meeting requested by Francis because “there were still topics to talk about.” Kicillof chose to send him books he authored about the British economist John Maynard Keynes, whose economic school is despised by President Javier Milei. In his management, the Buenos Aires governor tries to apply recipes related to Keynes’ theoretical and discursive base.
Kicillof, Pope Francis and the provincial ministers Carlos Bianco (Government) and Cristina Álvarez Rodríguez (Chief of Ministers’ Advisors)The trip to the old continent also served to revitalize and ratify the link between the Buenos Aires Executive and the Church in a context where part of the ecclesiastical institution has been putting a magnifying glass on the actions of the national government, especially when it was revealed that the government was keeping food withheld. that they should be destined for community soup kitchens; but they were housed in the warehouses of the Ministry of Human Capital. A decision that opened an internal crisis within the national government. Before that, at the Tedeum on May 25, the archbishop of Buenos Aires and primate of Argentina, Monsignor Jorge García Cuerva, had warned that “people’s efforts must be accompanied with actions and not just words.” and called for a “social alliance for hope, inclusive and non-ideological.” Milei and a good part of the Nation’s Cabinet listened to him in the front row.
This Wednesday, a mass will be held presided over by the bishop of San Isidro and president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference (CEA), Monsignor Oscar Ojea, together with “the mothers of the country”; the women who run community kitchens in popular neighborhoods. It will be in the Sanctuary of the Virgin of Caacupé in the Las Flores neighborhood of the town of San Justo, in La Matanza.
Next Wednesday’s initiative arose from the team of priests from popular neighborhoods and villages in Argentina, which includes some priests recognized for their work in deprived areas and who describe themselves as “continuers of Carlos Mugica’s team.” However, he has the support of some Buenos Aires government officials such as the Minister of Community Development, Andrés “Cuervo” Larroque, as this media learned.
However, just as Francisco received Kicillof twice in one day, the leader of the Catholic institution met Milei this Friday within the framework of the G7 summit. It was a smiling greeting as he made his entrance to the event as a special guest of the host, the Prime Minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni. According to the Vatican press office bulletin, before and after his dissertation on the use of Artificial Intelligence, Francis held audiences with the general director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva; with the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky; with the president of France, Emmanuel Macron; with the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau; with the president of Kenya, William Samoei Ruto; with the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi; with the president of the United States, Joseph Biden, with the president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva; with the president of Türkiye, Recep Tayyp Erdoğan and with the president of Algeria, Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
