"I'm going to leave them penniless, I'm going to melt them all down."
The phrase uttered by
Javier Milei
at the cabinet meeting generated strong rejection among the governors, and those with natural resources such as oil and hydroelectric energy issued warnings to the President.
Now,
Ignacio "Nacho" Torres
(JxC), from Chubut asked him not to pull the rope anymore.
"We do not threaten to cut off the gas tap, we produce, we generate. For every 100 pesos we contribute, we receive only 40, and on top of that
we have to accept that our national routes are a disaster
, and that our deep water ports, Where the resources that generate the foreign currency that have been squandered during the last national governments come from, they are destroyed," said Torres in a speech to teachers.
"
I warn the President not to pull the rope any further
, because it is
the Nation that must be accountable to the provinces
that have been contributing more than 300,000 million dollars for more than 100 years," Torres highlighted.
After three deputies who respond to the Peronist governor of Tucumán broke with Unión por la Patria to support the official ruling, Torres, from Together for Change, stood up: "
This governor is not going to be one of the submissives who submit." to the national governments
, and we are not going to allow ourselves to be intimidated by any threat or any parliamentary mischief".
"On top of that, they tell us that if we don't accompany, we won't see a peso. That's not how we handle ourselves: we handle ourselves with respect and we are going to support everything that is good for Chubut, but we are going to reject everything that is bad for our province and that we consider that it is also bad for the interests of the Nation," Torres complained.
The governor of Río Negro and his vice, also against Milei
A day before Torres, both the governor of Río Negro,
Alberto Weretilneck,
and his vice,
Pedro Pesatti
, also crossed over to the Government.
"What President Milei said today is an absolute provocation and takes the country to extremes from which it could be very difficult to return," the vice governor of Río Negro, Pedro Pesatti, remarked this Thursday.
"If the President of the Nation threatens to leave the provinces without the fiscal resources that correspond to them, the provinces, like the Patagonian ones, could leave the national government without oil, without gas and without hydroelectric energy," added the vice-governor of the provincial party. Together We Are Río Negro.
After the harsh message, Pesatti, who was previously mayor of Viedma - the provincial capital -, clarified: "But reaching that would be putting Argentina on the brink of national dissolution or a civil war and that is what the President should consider." before expressing themselves with such levels of violence when using threats as a method".
"He has every right in the world to send an omnibus law and expect Congress to approve it without parliamentarians modifying a period or a comma. But he also has the duty, as president of a democratic republic, to accept the decision that Congress takes, even if it doesn't like it," he concluded.
While Weretilneck, governor of Río Negro, also left a message on the networks: "Our Republic was formed by the federative union of the provinces. Federalism is a fundamental principle of the political organization of Argentina."
"Provincial governments guarantee essential services such as security, health and education. It is a fallacy to say that the provinces are responsible for Argentina's fiscal deficit. We are not responsible," Weretilneck added.
"Receiving this type of grievances from the central government is very sad and annoying. From the inside we are not going to accept any type of pressure: we are going to defend Río Negro and the Patagonian provinces," added the former senator and two-time governor who returned to office. being elected last year.
"In Patagonia we produce more than 90% of the country's gas and oil. We generate more than 25% of the electrical energy that makes Argentina work. We have in our provinces the best tourist centers that generate foreign currency. We have agriculture, livestock and fishing," listed the Patagonian governor.
"Stop threatening and call for dialogue. Stop pushing and look for big agreements to move forward as a society. Put aside confrontation and look for consensus. Get out of your head seeing us on our knees," concluded Weretilneck.
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