Society made the correct diagnosis in last year’s elections: Argentina needs many changes. Perhaps, he chose the wrong remedy by making president someone who does not have the tools to make that transformation. What is important and sustainable over time requires the approval of Congress and to achieve these agreements, the President must not only have his own wealth of legislators, he must also have the ability to seduce part of the opposition, much more so in this 21st century. of fragmentation of political parties, as a result of the fragmentation of the communication system as well. But perhaps he elected the right president to do a quick “service” to politics and the economy that will uncover with an ax the knots that strangle it, to make way for another agent who can turn into laws the changes that the country needs. One that destroys and another that builds.
Already before the elections, Carlos Melconian, who would have been the agent of change if Together for Change had won, called Milei “Icebreaker Almirante Irízar” as a metaphor for the one who breaks through what is hard, making way for the true and definitive army. And a month before Milei took office, on November 10, I titled this column by Villarruel “She, Macri’s plan?” conjecturing about the qualities of the vice president, which is worth rereading now when Victoria Villarruel became the protagonist of the agenda, given the rejection in the Senate of the DNU and her conflict with the President and his closest circle, for having allowed the session. Two months after that column illustrated with a photo of Victoria Villarruel with the presidential sash, at the beginning of January the newspaper Financial Times He interviewed her following the same conjecture of her eventual presidency, and a text retweeted by the vice president saying that she was prepared for whatever was necessary further cooled her relationship with Javier Milei.
This conjecture assumes the hypothesis of a Javier Milei who resigns, overwhelmed by the rejections of his policies by Congress, the Supreme Court and “the street” (demonstrations against him, such as those in 2001 against De la Rúa/Cavallo).
Another conjecture regarding the same facts is that of a dismissal for “poor performance of duties” in a political trial, which requires the votes of two-thirds of the deputies for it to prosper and two-thirds of the senators for the dismissal to be decided or No, always those present and not the entire body. An interesting fact is that in the case of impeachment of the President, the person who would preside over the Senate in that session would not be Vice President Villarruel, but rather the President of the Supreme Court, Horacio Rosatti.
In a context like this, it is likely that the defendant(s) will resign before a conviction occurs, as happened in 2003 with the Supreme Court judges appointed by Menem: Julio Nazareno, Guillermo López, Adolfo Vázquez. The other two members of that Court: Eduardo Moliné O’Connor and Antonio Boggiano underwent impeachment and were dismissed. The impeachment trial (article 60 of the Constitution) is only for the president, vice president, chief of staff, ministers and judges of the Supreme Court. Given that “bad performance” is totally subjective in the case of a president, an impeachment trial would only prosper in the face of a situation that makes a government unviable and in that case, it is likely that the president or the presidential ticket will resign as was the case in the case of De la Rúa and previously his vice president Chacho Álvarez.
This hypothesis continues with the application of the Law of Acephaly, whose last modification was coincidentally in 2002 in the midst of the last great governance crisis. Simply put, in a Legislative Assembly, the deputies and senators, by a simple majority of those present, elect who will occupy the presidency until the term of the resigned or dismissed person ends. The person chosen must be a deputy, senator or provincial governor.
Article 4 of the Acephalia Law expressly clarifies: “The time elapsed from the assumption provided for in this article until the beginning of the period for which they have been elected will not be considered for the purposes of the prohibition provided for in the last paragraph of article 90 of the National Constitution”. In other words, whoever was elected to “exercise the Executive Power” would have the possibility of competing as a presidential candidate in 2027 and, if elected, of being able to compete for re-election in 2031. If that deputy, senator or provincial governor were successful, he would the unique possibility of more than eleven years of mandate, which would make that position highly coveted by all the political forces that make up Congress.
The antidote would be for that person not to be a fifty-year-old like Milei, Massa or Kicillof, but rather someone over 70 years old who would allow the generation of current prominent politicians to have the possibility of competing for president in 2027 without having him as an adversary.
But at the same time, he would have to have the possibility of crossing the gap, both first to be elected, and then to have the laws approved that are necessary and would be the cause of the failure of the person he replaces. He would have to be voted for by both Unión por la Patria and radicalism, the PRO, the Civic Coalition, the socialism of Santa Fe and the Peronism of Córdoba, leaving out only La Libertad Avanza and eventually the “bullrrichistas.”
Whoever meets all these conditions is Miguel Ángel Pichettowho this year will turn 74 years old and presided over both the Justicialist bloc of the Chamber of Senators for 17 years (2002-2019) going through four presidencies: Duhalde, Kirchner, Fernández de Kirchner and Macri, and now in Deputies he presides over the We Make Coalition bloc Federal, which brings together the Peronism of Córdoba, the Socialism of Santa Fe, the Civic Coalition and part of the PRO with the representatives of the governors of Entre Ríos, Rogelio Frigerio and of Chubut, Ignacio Torres.
Pichetto during the extraordinary sessions the first half of January emerged as a clear primus inter pares giving legislative classes to many of his new peers. Pichetto was a candidate for vice president in 2019 along with Mauricio Macri and tried to be a candidate for president in 2023, being a pre-candidate without reaching the PASO. Perhaps, destiny will knock on his door when he least imagined it.
Society demands changes, but also who can implement them. We will see in the coming months if the President and his vice president manage to make solid progress with them.