"What happened the other day is because of the annoyance with the government," summarized an important senator allied to the libertarians to explain what happened on Wednesday in the Senate when three provincial senators stood up and blocked La Libertad Avanza (LLA) and the pro-dialogue blocs from issuing a commission dispatch on the Single Paper Ballot (BUP) project. postponing what would have been the first success of the ruling party in Congress.
According to what this senator told Clarín, in the upper house the legislators are upset by "the lack of willingness shown by the government to negotiate with the opposition, there is no talk, no dialogue." But that's not all, the discomfort also comes from the recent statements of Javier Milei, who accused deputies and senators of "looking for bribes" by questioning the scope of the mega DNU of deregulation of the economy.
It is obvious that the President's attitude towards Congress has strained the relationship between a space that continues to be a minority, such as LLA, – beyond the agreement it has with Macrism – with the opposition.
However, different parliamentary sources confided to this newspaper that after the failed attempt to draw an opinion in the plenary of the Constitutional Affairs and Justice commissions, there was a commitment from the leaders of the bloc of the new majority (including the provincial and Federal Unity senators) to rule in favor of the project that since June 2022 has had the approval of half of the Deputies. If the proposal is not approved, it will lose parliamentary status on February 22.
The senators agreed that the issue of postponing the ruling for a week has been dramatized and remarked that the decision was something agreed upon by all. "Debate and consensus-building is part of what we aspire to in the new Senate," said one senator.
The focus is on Edgardo Kueider (Unidad Federal - Entre Ríos), president of Constitutional Affairs, who doubts that he will accompany the project. The Entre Ríos native had unsuccessfully promoted the single ballot in his province, during the government of Gustavo Bordet, but proposed the ballot divided by categories like the one used in Santa Fe. The bill being discussed in the Senate is similar to the one that has been applied in Córdoba since 2011, all on a ballot.
The dissident Peronist argued that there are several insurmountable errors in the wording of the law, which requires modifications to be made and, consequently, should return to the lower house. For Juan Carlos Romero, of Cambio Federal, "it would be foolish" for the BUP project to return to the House of Representatives. It is that in the current context of Congress, both in the ruling party and among its allies, they see it as impossible for the proposal to be dealt with again when all the activity will be focused on the omnibus bill and with what it cost to gather the votes in 2022.
"We have to get the single ballot beyond some technical things that can be saved with another law," the radical Maximiliano Abad told this newspaper, while Mariana Juri urged to make the political decision so that in the next election there will already be a vote with BUP. The PRO also wants progress to be made without modifications, although they admit that it is not an urgent issue for the current moment that the country is experiencing.
To all this, in the ruling party as well as in the dialoguist blocs there is agreement that Kirchnerism wants to "delay" the treatment of the law and, therefore, raises technical errors in the drafting of the text and demands a comprehensive reform of the electoral law, including the elimination of the PASO and a definition on the financing of political parties. points on which he did not advance when he had the majority in the Senate.
The reality is that attention has been focused on what senators like Mónica Silva, who answers to the governor of Río Negro, Alberto Weretilneck, can resolve and who expressed her support for the proposal. However, he also sent the two modifications he requested in this week's plenary session to the authorities of the commission. Specifically, he requested that the system be applied by categories and that one of the paragraphs that speaks of a single button for a complete ballot be eliminated. This has to do with the fact that his party usually goes with a short ticket in national elections, without a candidate for president and vice president.
The other senators who become key in the definition are the 2 from the Frente de la Concordia de Misiones and the 2 from Santa Cruz who answer to Governor Claudio Vidal who did not give a position. With them, the Libertarians would reach 39 votes. However, it should be clarified that in the Chamber of Deputies, both sectors rejected the reform in tune with the Kirchnerism that was in charge of the government.
Despite this, in the different ranks that make up the new majority of the Senate there is optimism that on Wednesday, when the plenary meeting that went to the intermediate quarter resumes at 14 p.m., an opinion will finally be issued and a week later it will become law in the chamber.
The proposal that has the half-sanction of Deputies is based on the Cordoba model, with the national positions on the same ballot, photos of the first two candidates in all cases and up to five names in the category of deputies. In the event of simultaneous provincial elections with another system, there would be a double ballot box, although an option was left to choose the full list. The order would be defined by lottery and the ballots would be printed by the State.