With a firm voice, looking at the camera, she said: “
I am not going to become Cristina
Fernández de Kirchner.
“I am not going to become what we came to change.”
The video of Vice President
Victoria Villarruel
, shortly after the Senate rejected the ambitious presidential DNU, had several recipients, and several direct messages.
With one of them she marked the court for the Casa Rosada by pointing out that “the Senate is the House of the Provinces and is an independent power of the Argentine Republic” to complete with “there is
no government without institutions.”
In passing, he ratified his “unwavering commitment to the country and to
Javier Milei
,” with whom he said “we have worked
back to back
,” first as colleagues in Deputies and now as members of the presidential ticket.
The vice presidential clarification was not idle: on Wednesday, when the next day's session in the Senate to discuss the DNU had already been confirmed, the President launched a harsh statement in which he referred to “sectors of the political class that intend to advance with
an agenda of its own and without consultation
, in order to hinder negotiations and dialogue between the different sectors of the political leadership.”
They accuse and suspect the vice president of having her own and unconsulted agenda in the very minimal presidential environment, where her sister,
Karina Milei
, occupies a predominant place .
There were troll attacks on the networks where Villarruel was called a “
traitor
” and other nice things, and there were no shortage of people who suggested “
hanging her in the Plaza de Mayo
.”
They did not forgive him for having called that session, the result of which was more or less a foregone conclusion, despite the fact that he had already avoided four attempts to request authorization for the Senate to meet.
Such vehemence in denying that her statement was not intended for her, and that there was no tension in her relationship seemed to
confirm what they were trying to deny.
Anyway, it is not the first friction between Milei and Villarruel, much less between president and vice president.
Very fresh are the
no-positive vote of Julio Cobos
with 125 in Cristina Kirchner's first term, and
the resignation of Chacho Alvarez
in the Alliance government headed by Fernando de la Rúa.
Not to mention
Cristina Kirchner and Alberto Fernández
...
But history contains other pearls.
One of the most memorable, due to the size of the characters, is the one starring Domingo Faustino
Sarmiento
and Adolfo Alsina.
The first would have said, referring to the second: '
He will stay to ring the
Senate bell for six years, and I will invite him from time to time to eat so that he can see my good health.'
As the historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Schlesinger Jr. pointed out.
In a column in The Atlantic in May 1974, “
no president and vice president have ever trusted
each other.”
Distrust is inherent to the relationship.
The vice president has only one serious thing to do:
wait for the president to die
.
This is not the basis for cordial and lasting friendships.”
A publication by Ariel Sribman Mittelman in “Latin America Today” points out that “in 94% of Latin American countries with a vice presidency,
conflicts linked to this position
have arisen on at least one occasion during the last two decades.”
Milei and his vice have more than 3 and a half years of mandate ahead of them.
She has proven to have her own ideas and a steady hand, and to know how to differentiate loyalty from obedience.
The President
cannot remove her from her position
.
But will she dare to replicate Sarmiento's suggestion?
See also
See also
Javier Milei, trapped between the outsider and the president without laws
See also
See also
The DNU does not fall and breathe Milei;
opportunity to negotiate;
Lousteau, error or calculation?