The leadership of the PRO in Buenos Aires meets in Pergamino to contain the expansion of Milei’s party. Front, merger or 2013 model, doubts for the legislative elections
Mauricio Macri He smelled weakness in the national government and ordered the regrouping of forces in the PRO of the province of Buenos Aires in view of the legislative elections. This afternoon, starting at 17.30, the Buenos Aires leadership of the party will meet in Parchment to establish itself as the main opposition group to Axel Kicillof. It will be a meeting for the leadership of the second electoral section that will serve to send a political message to Freedom Advances which has just been established as a party in the country’s main electoral district.
The meeting is organized by the Mayor of Pergamino, Javier Martineznext to Francisco Ratto (San Antonio de Areco) and Marcelo Matzkin (Zárate)and will be attended by the president of the PRO of Buenos Aires and head of the block of Deputies, Cristian Ritondo, the Mayor of Vicente López and vice president of the party at the national level, Soledad Martínezthe national deputy and former candidate for governor, Diego Santilli, and the Mayor of Mar del Plata, Guillermo Montenegroamong others.
Yesterday, some of these leaders had met with Macri in Olivos to analyze the parliamentary agenda and to put on hold the support for both the 2025 Budget and the veto of the law on financing national universities. Luis “Toto” Caputo had to order the project to be redone, especially the public works annex, after the meeting with the provincial governors who complained about the cut in infrastructure funds in their districts and the adjustment of US$60 billion that Milei claimed from them on national television. Among these provincial leaders are: Rogelio Frigerio from Entre Rios and Ignacio Torres from Chubut who participated in yesterday’s meeting with Macri.
The silence of Mauricio Macri
Casa Rosada is concerned about the prolonged silence of Mauricio Macri on Milei’s possible veto of the university financing law. “For now the total veto remains confirmed,” official sources assured in response to a question from Scope. What is missing now is a official position of the PRO as a party to decide whether or not to rejoin the veto club, it struck down the retirement mobility law. “This veto is not the same as that of the retirees. A social conflict is coming that will last for a long time and that will directly affect the core of Milei’s electorate, the young people.”warned the PRO bloc in relation to the second veto that awaits the President’s signature. It is about another social subject. The mobilization of the university community is broader than the spectrum of retirees and with another vigor in addition to encompassing the majority of the middle class sectors. Added to this is the fact that almost 50% of men under 25 years of age, who attend national universities, make up the hard core of the electorate of La Libertad Avanza.
In the province of Buenos Aires, the battle is not about funds but about the political organization of the PRO in the face of the expansion of La Libertad Avanza led by Sebastián Pareja in the main electoral district of the country. Javier Milei drives José Luis Espert as the first candidate for national deputies and discards, at least for now, the formation of a front with the PRO. Espert is a risky bet, not only because of his status as an economist in the face of the turbulence and suffering of the electorate of Greater Buenos Aires, but also because he will be the face of a Budget project with an uncertain future. The ruling party had to postpone until the second week of October the treatment of the project in commission due to the lack of support from the governors and the errors in its preparation.
The PRO’s dilemma in PBA
But the measurements do not encourage either. PRO of Buenos Aires in the suburbs, where Peronism maintains its main electoral stronghold and Axel Kicillof polarizes with La Libertad Avanza more than with Macrism. That is why the dispute between Macri and Milei is now concentrated in the interior of the province of Buenos Aires, where the leadership of Macri will meet this afternoon to analyze scenarios. The risk is to repeat the mistake of 2023 when PRO and LLA were separated with the candidacies for governor of Nestor Grindetti and Carolina Píparo, paving the way for Kicillof’s victory.
“The opposition to Kirchnerism in the province of Buenos Aires is the PRO. We have always been. And we are all going to work for next year to win the elections, and for change to also come to the province,” was the message of Soledad Martínez before today’s meeting in Pergamino, one day after the confrontation with Macri in Olivos. A message that also aims to Patricia Bullrich who, via Diego Valenzuela (February 3)recruits volunteers to join the libertarian branch that he claims to represent in the PRO.
The internal dilemma of the PRO is whether to compete on the outside alone with its own brand, insist on the creation of an electoral front with LLA – a proposal vetoed by Karina Milei, Santiago Caputo and even Guillermo Francos – or replicate the 2013 model when the PRO did not present a ballot in the province of Buenos Aires and placed three of its own deputies on the list of the Frente Renovador.
Source: Ambito
