The President of Argentina, Javier Milei and his vice president, Victoria Villarruel, have not spoken to each other for days and are experiencing one of the most tense moments of their relationship since they assumed the Executive in December 2023.
According to the criteria of
The reason? A controversial tweet from Villarruel in which he went on a rampage against France after the criticism that the Argentine team received after winning the 2024 Copa América for a chant branded as racist and even xenophobic.
Villarruel called the European country “colonialist and having second-class citizens.” But his statements did not go down well and even the president’s sister and executive secretary, Karina Milei, went directly to the French Embassy in Buenos Aires to say that the publication did not represent the government’s position.
Local media reported that the dispute over the tweet actually has as its background a tense relationship between Villarruel and Karina Milei, who is nicknamed ‘El Jefe’ and who seems to have more power than anyone else within the Argentine Executive. Although others also point to a dispute between the president and his ‘vice’ due to a question of popularity.
“This is personal. It is the antagonism between the two most powerful women in the government,” a source close to the vice president told the Argentine newspaper. Page 12.
This is how a football chant ended up exposing the tense relationship that exists within the Casa Rosada, the seat of presidential power in Argentina.
The controversial chants of the national team that started the debate
The origin of the unusual crisis between the heads of the Argentine government was a live broadcast by footballer Enzo Fernández on Instagram after the triumph of the albiceleste in the final of the Copa América, in which they beat the Colombian national team 1-0.
In the clip, which went viral on social media, the midfielder and other teammates sang a chant that mentioned the French national team players, claiming that they had been born in African countries.
The video quickly sparked a wave of intense reactions in the football world: French and Argentine players spoke out, many others stopped following the Chelsea midfielder, Fernández’s club announced disciplinary proceedings against him and the French Football Federation (FFF) itself issued a statement in which announced the launch of “a complaint to the courts for offensive words of a racial and discriminatory nature.”
And while the player apologized on his social networks – he stated that the song included “very offensive language” and that there was “absolutely no excuse for these words” –, The situation did not stop there and even escalated to the political level in Buenos Aires.
The first to speak was the Undersecretary of Sports, Julio Garro, who said in an interview that the captain of the national team, Lionel Messi, should come out and apologize for the chants against the French.
We never had colonies or second-class citizens. We never imposed our way of life on anyone. But we will not tolerate them doing it to us either.
A statement that later cost him his job and to which Milei’s government responded on its X account: “No government can tell the Argentine National Team, World Champion and Two-time Champion of America, or any other citizen, what to comment, what to think or what to do. For this reason, Julio Garro is no longer the Undersecretary of Sports of the Nation.”
But the most explosive reaction came from the vice president and head of the Senate, Victoria Villarruel: “Argentina is a sovereign and free country. We never had colonies or second-class citizens. We never imposed our way of life on anyone. But we will not tolerate them doing it to us either. Argentina was made with the sweat and courage of Indians, Europeans, Creoles and blacks like Remedios del Valle, Sergeant Cabral and Bernardo de Monteagudo. No colonialist country is going to intimidate us with a song from the field or for telling the truths that they don’t want to admit. Enough of pretending to be indignant, hypocrites. Enzo, I support you, Messi, thank you for everything! Argentines always with their heads held high! Long live Argentinity!” he wrote on X.
So, What seemed to be a social media dispute or an argument that would remain in the world of football, ended up becoming a focus of great tension between Javier Milei and Vice President Villarruel.
On Thursday, July 18, without having received a note of protest or claim from the embassy, Karina Milei, the president’s sister and secretary of the Presidency, personally approached the embassy in France to apologize and claim that the leaders of the Casa Rosada did not agree with Villarruel’s publications.
“(Karina) went to explain that the unfortunate comment on social media (by the vice president) was personal and that it is not the position of the Government to mix issues of sporting passions with diplomatic issues. Relations with France are intact. In this case, what the vice president of the Nation said is not the position of the Government,” explained the presidential spokesman, Manuel Adorni.
The libertarian president himself came out to say that it was not “a happy tweet,” although he emphasized that in 95 percent of the cases he agrees with the vice president.
“It was not a happy tweet because a sporting issue cannot create an institutional mess in diplomatic terms. Kari sorted it out. The French were angry. Sporting issues are resolved on a sporting level. But that’s it. Things happen. There is no problem. It has already been resolved. On 95 percent of things we agree with Villarruel,” said the president in an interview.
Villarruel did not delete the post or apologize for what he said on his personal networks. On the contrary, and far from seeking to reduce tensions, he made sure to pin the tweet, that is, to highlight it at the top of his X profile so that those who enter his account would continue to see it.
Karina Milei, Victoria Villarruel and the disagreements in the Casa Rosada
Although the spokesman for the Argentine presidency, Manuel Adorni, tried to downplay the crisis by saying that the “issue produced a media noise that should not have been generated,” Local media claim that the dispute over Villarruel’s post on social media did raise tensions that go beyond the national team’s controversial chants.
And while fights between presidents and vice presidents are not new in Argentina, nor in other countries in the region – just look at the recent case of Daniel Noboa and his vice president Verónica Abad or the same disputes in Argentina between Néstor Kirchner and his vice president Daniel Scioli or Cristina Kirchner and her ‘vices’ Julio Cobos and Alberto Fernández – the confrontation with Villarruel seems to have a differential factor.
Argentine journalist Federico Mayol, who writes for Infobae, says that the real problem is between Karina Milei –considered the most powerful person in the country after the president– and Villarruel.
The sources cited by Mayol assure that Karina Milei or ‘El Jefe’, as the president himself calls her, has had a certain mistrust towards Villarruel since before assuming the leadership of the Executive, because he believes that the official has her own agenda and is promoting a personal project that goes beyond the libertarian president.
This is also pointed out by the Argentine newspaper Page 12which gives an account of other snubs by Karina Milei towards the vice president: “The secretary of the presidency does not trust the vice president. She believes that she plays her own political game and since the beginning of the libertarian administration she has been displacing her from all decision-making positions.: He took away her office in Casa Rosada and her positions in the Security and Defense portfolios, stripped her of any type of influence in the administration and confined her functions to the corridors of the Senate.”
The secretary of the presidency does not trust the vice president. She believes that she plays her own political game and since the beginning of the libertarian administration she has been displacing her from all decision-making positions.
And they add: “In return, Villarruel has been the protagonist of snubs – such as his absence from the event for the May Pact in Tucumán –, She has maintained her own agenda and has allowed herself to describe the president as the “poor little ham” trapped between her and Karina.”
In another snub against the vice president, the image of the official organizational chart published by the presidency does not have the image of Victoria Villarruel. On the contrary, Karina Milei appears clearly prominent and almost at the same level as the current president.
“The subtext of this decision could be read as a forced delimitation of its powers, limited to the presidency of the Senate,” says the local newspaper. The nation.
Thus, according to Página/12, Vice President Villarruel is convinced that behind the disagreements over her tweet about France and the national team there is only one name and surname: Karina Mileiand believes that the criticism of her statements and the express trip of Milei’s sister to the French embassy in Buenos Aires are just another demonstration of power that seeks to leave her out of the executive’s decisions.
Others close to Villarruel in the Senate criticized the fact that it was Karina and not Foreign Minister Diana Mondino who went to give explanations to the embassy, hinting at a rather personal matter. “When Diana Mondino said that all Chinese were the same, Karina did not go to the Chinese embassy,” said sources cited by La Nación.
When Diana Mondino said that all Chinese people were the same, Karina did not go to the Chinese embassy
Beyond the disputes with Karina Milei, the journalist Joaquín Morales Solá also reviews in an analysis for The nation certain snubs from the president towards Villarruel since long before the controversy over the albiceleste and he assures that they are due above all to a dispute over popularity in the government.
“Milei often takes this relationship to the point of maximum tension. Milei comes and goes because she sees that in the polls he is tied with Villarruel in popular sympathy or that, in some, she surpasses him,” writes.
The Casa Tres poll, for example, gives Milei a positive image that reaches 53 percent, followed closely by Villarruel, who has a positive image of 52 percent. If we look at the rejection, 40 percent say they have a negative image of the ‘vice’, against 43 percent who say they have a negative image of Milei.
Villarruel is also the official with the best numbers in the survey by the consulting firm Equipo Mide, which gives her a 50 percent positive image, versus 46 percent for Milei.
For now, Although both parties have tried to reduce the tension and project that everything is fine, the presidential spokesman has already confirmed that Javier Milei and Victoria Villarruel have not spoken to each other for days, While the vice president’s agenda shows that she took refuge in Catamarca – a province in the northeast – since the weekend to get away from criticism while she continues with her own agenda, how far will the tensions go?
ANGIE NATALY RUIZ HURTADO – INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL – EL TIEMPO
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