Deputies: UCR contains the five “libertarians” within the block

In practice, however, the bloc of deputies that he leads, with serious difficulties, Rodrigo De Loredois broken. “The news is that there is now a group of five libertarians supported by Rodrigo de Loredo. They are moles of La Libertad Avanza within the UCR and that is unacceptable,” complained a legislator close to Facundo Manes last night when leaving the block.

UCR: virtual fracture

For now, Manes’ sector is not going to leave the bloc with the objective of “defending the flags and the identity of radicalism,” they explained in response to a question from Scope. “We don’t want the party and the block to be given to Milei. We will continue to demand a change in the leadership of the bloc. Neither De Loredo nor Karina Banfi can continue to be the authorities. In addition to not leading in practice, they ignore the decisions of the national party,” warned Manes’ office.

At last night’s UCR bloc meeting, De Loredo wanted to speed up the meeting, saying that he had to catch a plane and asked that each law be voted on beforehand in bloc meetings and that whatever is decided, all deputies should abide by it. But the motion was rejected by the Manes and Martin Lousteau sectors as well as by the “neutral” deputies like Julio Cobos.

At the end of the meeting of the radical bench, de Manes’ deputies left, shouting at Loredo and Banfi that they were not up to the task of leading anything. “Not only do they cover up for the five libertarians, but they also want to impose a single position on all laws. It is unacceptable and then they talk about plurality,” they complained.

This week, the board of directors of the UCR National Convention decided to preventively suspend the party membership of the four national deputies who, representing the Radical Party, changed their vote and supported the presidential veto of the retirement mobility law. They are Mariano Campero, Martín Arjol, Luis Picat and Pablo Cervi, who will have their membership suspended while the investigation process that will now be carried out by a party ethics court lasts.

Deputies sanctioned

In fact, there were five deputies from the bloc who voted in favor of the Government and against the project that the UCR had promoted together with other blocs, but Federico Tournier is exempt from the sanction since he is a non-party member. The Corrientes native joined the bench led by De Loredo due to his ties with Governor Gustavo Valdés, but he belongs to another political party.

There are two other deputies whose cases will also be referred to the Ethics Tribunal for investigation: Roxana Reyes from Santa Cruz and Gerardo Cipolini from Chaco, who were absent at the time of the vote after having argued in favor of the Government’s position during the debate.

The complaint filed against the deputies that was elevated to the National Ethics Tribunal of the party, which will judge its conduct. This presentation also reaches Roxana Reyes and Gerardo Cipolini, the two legislators of the bloc who, although they did not vote against the law, were absent during the debate.

The Board of Directors decided by 11 votes to 1 to raise the 6 cases. The only one who did not support this proposal was Andrés Lombardi, from the sector of the governor of Mendoza, Alfredo Cornejo, close to Milei. Regarding the suspension of the legislators, the initiative received 10 affirmative votes against 2 negative votes. In addition to the representative from Mendoza, the representative from Misiones also rejected this proposal.

“When the presidential veto was being discussed, four National Deputies affiliated with the Radical Civic Union and members of our Block deviated from what they themselves had maintained in the first vote and supported the presidential veto, incurring in serious partisan misconduct, and causing serious damage to the credibility and honor of our party. Even more serious were the arguments put forward during the session and in the media, to the effect that they had made a mistake in their calculations, and that their abrupt change of opinion was based on the need to guarantee fiscal balance,” the resolution stated.