2024-02-28 08:30:00
“This asshole is not going to run away from me.” The President was preparing on Friday night to board the commercial flight that was going to take him to the United States, where he spoke at a conservative event and achieved his long-awaited meeting with Donald Trump, when he received the news that the Governor of Chubut, Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Torres, threatened to cut off the supply of oil and gas from his province to the rest of the country. He mumbled his reaction immediately.
The Chubut warning was due to cut the sending of a third of the co-participation that the national government should send. The withholding occurred on account of a provincial debt with a national fund that was pending refinancing for about 12 million dollars. Twelve, yes, no zero is missing.
Beyond the exchange of messages, emails and chats around this renegotiation, of which the premium presidential advisor Santiago Caputo was aware (whose consulting firm advised Torres in his provincial campaign and the governor called him to ask him to intercede), this A new incident between the Nation and the federal states is escalating to dangerous levels that can bring the country closer to institutional risks.
Although ultimately the discussion is about money – it is always about money – the measures being challenged seem disproportionate to the real effects they would cause.
That the national authorities withhold from a province that is underfunded (due to very poor previous management) a percentage of the funds that correspond to it, exposes it to a crisis of magnitude. This is aggravated by a deep drop in the collection of co-participating taxes..
Javier Milei detonated the relationship with the governors and opened a war with indecipherable results
That the governor of Chubut, formally supported by almost all of his colleagues, poses the challenge that no more energy will come from his province until a solution is found does not seem like the ideal path either. Furthermore, it is impracticable: he should have the support of the oil companies that operate in the area and the sector’s unions, which have already warned that they will avoid getting involved in this conflict.
This Tuesday, Gustavo Melella from Fuegian (also with a fuel cut) and Axel Kicillof from Buenos Aires joined in retaliation from Chubut, who decided to close his ports and road corridors. An Argentina that returns to the times of Juan Manuel de Rosas and the struggle between centralism and the provinces.
The tension between Javier Milei and the governors accelerated since the fall of the omnibus bill. The President blamed the provincial leaders for this and began the revenge operation with the chainsaw. Bye to transportation subsidies, to the teacher incentive funda trust funds and discretionary transfers. They joined in the farewell to public works. And it could be recharged from now on with the generalization of the delay in sending the co-participation and assistance to the pension funds of each district.
“I’m going to leave you all without a penny,” an angry Milei promised weeks ago at a Cabinet meeting to tame the provincial bosses. It is in that process.
On the other side and with nuances, the leaders are trying to put together a megablock of resistance and counterattack. The official vendetta is so furious that even those from the PRO (like Torres) had to toughen up. The only exception is the Tucumán Peronist Osvaldo Jaldo, who definitively mutated into a convenient libertarian functionality. It will be seen how long.
The new survey on Milei’s management: half approve, but support is falling
One of the paths of the provincial counteroffensive is built in the Senate. There Kirchnerism has the first minority and with a handful more votes it will reach a quorum. So that? To reject the mega DNU that the Government launched shortly after taking office. That plus from other forces would already be being given by Claudio Vidal from Santa Cruz, Alberto Weretilneck from Rio Negro and Martín Llaryora from Córdoba. They wouldn’t be the only ones.
The provincial challenge could be replicated in Deputies, so The DNU on which Milei activated a large part of his management would lose validity and, above all, his cultural battle against what he likes to call caste.
Exacerbated in their impetus, especially if they move forward with the repeal of the DNU, there are already leaders and legislators who have begun to spread as a rumor the possibility that they are considering initiating an impeachment trial of the President, which could lead to his dismissal. Something unprecedented in 40 years of democracy, despite the fact that it is contemplated in the National Constitution. Perhaps it is a laboratory test to put pressure on the Casa Rosada.
In the midst of a very complicated social and economic situation, Argentine politics insists on accelerating towards a possible abyss rather than working together to resolve pressing problems. I hope they stop before the jump into the void.
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