Elections 2025: Peronism is reorganized in the provinces with the battle for the Senate as the axis

The City of Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos, Chaco, Neuquén, Río Negro, Salta, Santiago del Estero and Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands will be the jurisdictions that will renew seats in the Upper House. Currently, between its two blocks, the National Popular Front and Unidad Ciudadana, Unión por la Patria (UP) has 33 of the 72 legislators.

The challenge will be superlative, since the mandates that expire are those of the leaders who arrived in the 2019 elections, in which Alberto Fernández won widely in the country against Mauricio Macri.

Beyond the idea of ​​forging a transversal strategy for a Peronism that is still trying to calibrate the compass, many of the final definitions will depend on local logic. For example, in Black River and Jump Provincialist forces govern, which arrived with support from UP, but distanced themselves from the league after Milei’s victory.

Of the platoon of provinces that will elect senators, only two governors are light blue: Fuegian Gustavo Melella and the man from Santiago Gerardo Zamorawhose replacement will be elected in 2025. Neither of them belongs to the PJ. Melella comes from FORJA, a coalition of radical origin, historically allied with Peronism; Zamora, meanwhile, commands the Civic Front for Santiago, a hallmark of his own.

The Kueider factor in Entre Ríos and Perotti’s game in Santa Fe

One of the districts that will vote for senators next year and that arouses the greatest interest due to the particularity of the time is Entre Ríos. This Monday, the provincial Justicialism formalized the expulsion of Edgardo Kueider of the party, as a consequence of his arrest in Paraguay when trying to enter with US$200 thousand without declaring. Almost in a mirror, Peronism will try to throw him out of the upper house and keep his bench, which currently belongs to the bloc United Provinces.

In reality, the request to move Kueider of the PJ had emerged after the senator supported the Bases law, breaking with the organic position of the space. The timing of his ejection was extended until this week, when the scandal that featured the legislator ended up sealing his fate. Failure to comply with party obligations, misconduct, indiscipline and violation of principles and resolutions of party organizations are the attitudes attributed to him.

Harassed by complaints about the delay in dismissing the leader of the Peronist ranks, the head of the Entre Ríos PJ, Jose Cacerestried to put cold cloths. ““Attacking each other only serves the national and provincial government; not realizing this is being clouded by opportunism and personal ambitions that, in the face of such a state of affairs, only speaks of the smallness of some leadership,” he noted on his social networks.

A similar scenario occurs in Santa Fe. There, the former governor Omar Perotti was key to the sanction of the constitutional reform promoted by Maximiliano Pullaro. Specifically, Perotti ignored the official position of the Justicialist party and played his own cards, negotiating on his own with the ruling party, a fact that generated the fury of the party. The bomb fell in the bowels of a Peronism that has still not managed to rearrange itself after losing the province in the hands of the United front to change Santa Fe, mirroring what happened with Javier Milei in Nación.

Thus, the Santa Fe PJ, commanded by Guillermo Cornagliacalled a meeting for Friday with the objective of, among other topics, analyzing the conduct of both Perotti and the three deputies who answer to him and who voted in favor of the constitutional reform. These are Celia Arena, Marcos Corach and Sonia Martorano.

Provincialisms: unknowns and possible alliances for Peronism

Some of the main unknowns about what place Peronism will occupy in 2025 have to do with the districts governed by provincialist forces that until 2023 were allied with UP. Jump is one of them. Next year, the province will renew its three seats in the Senate. Justicialism will put the seats of Sergio Leavy and Nora del Valle Jimenezboth from the Citizen Unit block. The third seat belongs to the historic Juan Carlos Romerofrom Federal Exchange.

This year, the governor Gustavo Saenz He was one of the pillars of the Government in Congress. Even President Milei entertained him with a barbecue in Olivos, along with his peers from Tucumán, Catamarca and Misiones. The choice of Cristina Kirchner At the head of Justicialism he functions as a dam for an eventual approach by Sáenz, from a Peronist background. The northerner was betting on a victory for Ricardo Quintela from Rioja in the internal competition.

Cristina Soledad Troyano.jpg

Cristina Kirchner with Soledad Troyano, from the PJ of Salta.

This weekend, the former president received at the Patria Institute Soledad Troyano, supporter of the Salta PJ. In this regard, Troyano told Aries that next year there will be national and local elections in the province, and that “there will be a “there will be redefinition of alliances and fronts.”

In Black Riverretaining seats in the Senate will be a challenge for both the provincialist Alberto Weretilneck as for Peronism. Currently, the governor has the legislator Monica Silva in the upper house and aspires to hold that seat. UP, meanwhile, enlists Martin Donate and Silvina Garcia Larraburuboth framed behind Cristina Kirchner. The emergence of Milei, who has already managed to make La Libertad Avanza (LLA) official in the province, added to the threat of a libertarian alliance with the PRO, puts both at risk.

During a recent interview, Doñate lamented the collapse of the agreement that Justicialism and the ruling party Juntos Somos Río Negro reached in 2023 and anticipated that the legislative candidacies will only be defined between April and May of next year. “My role will be defined in April or May. Talking about candidacies today is nonsense,” he told the Río Negro portal.

Gustavo Melella Malvinas.jpg

Gustavo Melella, governor of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the South Atlantic Islands.

The Fuegian case also deserves attention. Although he is in his second term, Gustavo Melella It does not have its own bishops in the Senate, so it will try to add its own name to gain firepower in negotiations with the Nation. Two of the seats in the province belong to the PJ: María Eugenia Duré and Cristina Lopez. The third is in the hands of the radical Pablo Blanco.

Melella is one of the leaders in conflict with Milei. However, his membership in the FORJA coalition, a minority space compared to other national expressions, leads him to have to negotiate recurrently with Peronism. While the constitutional reform he is promoting is stuck in Justice, the dance of names to succeed him in 2027 has already begun. That game will shape the decisions made next year.