The Argentine Senate approved the suspension of the mandatory primaries for the legislative elections of 2025. With 43 votes in favor, 20 against and 6 abstentions, Javier Milei managed to score a political triumph that will allow to centralize the elaboration of electoral lists, which in the case From his training, La Libertad progresses, remains in the hands of his sister, Karina.
The Argentine primaries, known as the step (acronym for open, simultaneous and mandatory primaries) were being held since 2009, but Milei and their supporters wanted to eliminate them. The declared argument was economic savings – organizing them costs 150 million dollars (143 million euros), according to the government. The ruling party intended to eliminate them definitively, but to get the vote ahead had to settle for promoting a temporary suspension for the October legislative, whose primary ones should be held in August, according to the original calendar.
The vote was conditioned by the local electoral logic of each of the senators; No block voted unanimously, but all banks – peronists, radicals and even libertarian – had votes for and against. For example, almost half of union for the country, Cristina Kirchner’s party, voted in favor: 11 of her 34 senators accompanied the executive’s initiative. “We have moved people away, we confuse it more, we do not give it transparency. […] It is not that we are going to scare people, people tell us that they arrived here, ”argued the Peronist Carolina Moisés. The majority of northern senators voted in favor, while it was the Christian who voted against.
Republican proposal, the formation of the Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich, and parliamentary support of the Milei Group, unanimously voted in favor of the suspension. Even Senator Guadalupe Tagliaferri, who gave a speech in favor of the Paso. “I believe in the step. The step democratizes access to decision charges, transparent citizenship wishes and allow new leaders to battle in their party structures, ”he warned, but clarified that, however, he would accompany the suspension for that time.
Among those who demonstrated against eliminating the primaries, the same argument was repeated: that suspending them was a “political caste” mechanism. “The consequence of suspending them is to return to something opaque, that instead of the citizens choose the best candidates on each front, they are selected by finger in the opacity of the political parties. Who has the pen decides who the candidate is. That is that the worst caste decides who the candidates are, ”Martín Lousteau, of the Radical Civic Union, argued.
#Milei #Argentine #Senate #suspend #mandatory #primary #legislative #elections
