The legal device by which mayors and councilors of the Province can seek indefinite re-election while looking askance at La Cámpora

Pedro Gianello

07/27/2021 18:50

• Clarín.com

• Politics

Updated 07/27/2021 7:35 PM

Vericueto, twist, small print.

With a magnifying glass, mayors of the province of Buenos Aires, councilors and school counselors found an opportunity to

circumvent the law voted in 2016

that prevents more than one reelection for those positions and those of senators and provincial deputies.

But the shortcut has a cost: it

involves requests for licenses or resignations from December 9 to be candidates in 2023

.

While the Peronist mayors have pending a negotiation for reelection with the national deputy Máximo Kirchner, who will seek to take over at the head of the Buenos Aires Justicialist Party at the end of the year, the annex to decree 265 of 2019, signed by former governor María Eugenia Vidal, his former Chief of Staff Federico Salvai and his former Minister of Government, Joaquín De La Torre, could also benefit many communal leaders of the PRO and radicals, especially in the interior of Buenos Aires.

Today, 

90 of the 135 mayors of the Province could not be re-elected in 2023

.

In 2019, 46 of that total were chosen by Together for Change;

39 for the Front of All;

one by Federal Consensus;

and two neighborhood members.

The regulation that prohibits reelection for a third term specifies that "it covers those who, having been reelected in the same position for a second consecutive term, have assumed their functions and served for more than two years, continuous or alternate."

With that explanation, the phrase

"Two years and one day"

began to circulate among the Buenos Aires leaders

.

The provincial deputy of the Renewal Front, Rubén Eslaiman, was the promoter of the law that limits indefinite re-elections to provincial and municipal positions.

"If during the first term the mayor or councilor did not take leave, this December 9 could request leave or resign without returning until the end of the mandate to be a candidate in the 2023 elections," sums up a suburban councilor who is going through his second term and is excited about renewing his bank in two years.

The law, voted by an agreement between Cambiemos and Sergio Massa's Renovation Front, established in article 7 of the transitory provisions that "the period of the Mayor, Councilors, School Counselors, Deputies and Senators upon the entry into force of this Law (2016) will be considered as the first period ". 

At the end of last year, the mayors (of different political parties) began to press for an article of the law to be changed or for a judicial protection to be authorized, arguing that those elected in 2015 when they were presented did not know that this would be the first term of the only two they could have.

Under Peronism, the communal chiefs wanted this modification or the presentation of the precautionary measure in exchange for yielding the PJ to Máximo Kirchner.

Even President Alberto Fernández himself had winked at the communal chiefs by stating: "When a mayor is (elected) two or three times, it is because the neighbors vote for him and want him to remain mayor. And we cannot go against it. of the popular will ".

But with the advance of 2021 came the second wave of coronavirus, the growth of infections and deaths, in La Cámpora they did not see well the presentation of an injunction to enable re-re-elections.

The discussion kicked off for the summer of 2022.

Ricardo Rolleri was elected councilor for the first time in 1983 and obtained nine indefinite re-elections.

After more than 37 years in office, he could not run for councilor in these elections by law.

He is a candidate for provincial deputy.

Photo: Juano Tesone

In the previous to the closing of lists this Saturday there were no judicial presentations and two provincial senators -a camper and a leader of Cambiemos-, ten deputies and dozens of councilors could not appear.

Among them stands out Luis Rolleri, president of the Peronist bloc in the Deliberative Council of La Matanza, who has held a seat uninterruptedly since 1983: he has nine consecutive reelections.

The witness case and a chance for the mayors

However, this closing of lists revealed a witness case that anticipates what could happen in December in several of the 135 municipalities of the province.

The current president of the Deliberative Council of Ituzaingó, Pablo Piana, topped the list of the Frente Para la Victoria in 2013 and also that of Unidad Ciudadana in 2017.

According to Law 14,836, he could not present himself for a new term, but since he did not assume the first term because he was appointed in the local Executive by Mayor Alberto Descalzo, in this election he could present himself as a candidate without being objected to by the Electoral Board of the Province. .

He returns to the top of the list, in this case from the Front of All.

Pablo Piana, current president of the Deliberative Council of Ituzaingó, has two consecutive terms and can be run again because the first one did not assume it.

Within Peronism, the pre-candidacy of Piana became a beacon for those who do not trust that La Cámpora, which advances in several lists within the municipalities of the Frente de Todos, agrees to modify the article of the law that would allow one more reelection for all in 2023.

There are three cases that have already requested a license and if they continue, they could be presented in two years.

Gabriel Katopodis won the 2019 elections as mayor of San Martín, assumed and requested a license to act as Minister of Public Works of the Nation.

Jorge Ferraresi was elected as mayor of Avellaneda less than two years ago, and in November of last year he was appointed Minister of Territorial Development and Habitat, instead of María Eugenia Bielsa.

His second in the Ministry, Santiago Maggiotti, was elected as mayor of Navarro and also requested a license.

Between now and December there could be more cases.

Juan Zabaleta, from Hurlingham, had the highest boiling point in his war with local La Cámpora on Saturday.

The communal chief signed up as the first candidate for councilor to go to the internship with Martín Rodríguez Alberti, the camper deputy executive director of PAMI.

Finally on Monday there was an agreement, Zabaleta would assume in Social Development in place of the current minister Daniel Arroyo, who signed as a pre-candidate for national deputy of the Frente de Todos.

If he assumes the national position, in his place at the head of the Commune will remain the camper Damián Selci, first on the list of councilors for 2019.

It could also happen with Mariano Cascallares, Mayor of Almirante Brown.

On Saturday he was registered as the first candidate for provincial deputy for the Third Electoral Section.

If he assumed the legislative position before December 10, he would leave the municipality in the hands of the camper Juan José Fabiani -with a good relationship with the communal chief-, and he could also run as a candidate in 2023.

LM

Look also

Two senators, ten deputies and dozens of councilors, those who were left out of the lists by a Law

The record councilor of the Conurbano: he has been in his seat since 1983 and will not be able to renew in these elections