The Government of the city of Buenos Aires will denounce the officials of the Executive of Argentina who are “responsible” in case of failing to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that requires the restitution of funds to the capital of the country and that the Argentine president, Alberto Fernández, has already announced that will not abide
The Argentine president, Alberto Fernandez, opened an institutional conflict with the Supreme Court by refusing to abide by a ruling that obliges the Government to restore funds to the Autonomous City of Buenos Airesa decision in which he has the support of several provincial governors, but which confronts him with the opposition, which might request a political trial once morest him.
The controversy originated in 2020, when the government of the Peronist Fernández cut the funds that must be sent to the capital, an autonomous state like the Argentine provinces, for the distribution of the taxes that the Treasury collects and that must be distributed among the provinces and the city of Buenos Aires.
The capital’s government, headed by Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, one of the main opposition figures, then went to the Supreme Court, which unanimously issued a precautionary measure this Wednesday.
This obliges the National Executive to restore to Buenos Aires 2.95% of the funds of the so-called federal co-participation compared to the current 2.32%, for which the city must receive 180,000 million Argentine pesos (904 billion Chilean pesos ) in addition to those you already receive.
Fernández, who has begun his last year in office with serious unresolved economic imbalances and maintains open criticism of the Judiciary, called the ruling “political”, “inconsistent” and “impossible to comply” and decided to challenge the members of the highest court and request the revocation of the measure.
The decision was supported by the governors of fourteen of the 23 Argentine provinces, who will ask the Court to be considered as parties in the case, while this Friday four other provincial leaders also expressed their concern regarding the open conflict.
constitutional issue
However, the mayor of the capital rejected, in a press conference offered this Friday, that the ruling affects the funds received by the provinces and anticipated that, if the National Executive does not comply with the ruling, it will judicially denounce the responsible officials.
“The president has to take responsibility for this decision to violate the Constitution,” said Rodríguez Larreta, who is emerging as a possible candidate for the 2023 presidential elections.
In his opinion, the president’s decision to breach the ruling breaks “the constitutional order”, violates “the rule of law and democracy” and constitutes “the worst attempt in a long list of attacks by Kirchnerism to annul Justice.”
For the constitutional lawyer Daniel Sabsay, “there is a clear breach of the Constitution” in the decision of the head of state not to comply with the ruling.
“Clearly, what is taking place is contempt, disobedience, breach of the duties of a public official and abuse of power, that is, the opposite of what a power that falls within the Constitution should do,” he told EFE. Sabsay.
more crack
Rodríguez Larreta revealed that the blocks of Together for Change, the coalition that in 2015 led the conservative Mauricio Macri to the Casa Rosada, is analyzing other judicial and legislative actions before Fernández’s determination, which might include an eventual request in Parliament for impeachment.
All this conflict of powers only deepens the political rift in an Argentina that is headed for a complex electoral process next year.
“The president made a conflictive decision that once once more generates a wide crack,” political analyst Jorge Arias, from the Polilat consultancy, told EFE.
For the expert, “in the face of this conflict of powers, no one is innocent, neither the president, nor the head of government of the city, nor the governors, nor the members of the Supreme Court”, but “everyone is, in short, lining up in a rift around the next elections.”
