At 11:20, the session in Deputies began (Photos: Adrián Escandar)
This Wednesday, the Government faced the legislative battle to uphold the presidential veto of the financing project for higher education institutions and managed to prevail in the Chamber of Deputies. The ruling party maintained the presidential veto in a session that, by the parameters of Deputies, was quite agile and fast. At the time of the vote, the board showed that the insistence reached 160 votes, which was insufficient to achieve two-thirds compared to the 84 of those who voted against and signed the end of the discussion on the funds for senior housing. studies.
Although the definition was open for much of the session, there was speculation in the corridors of the National Congress that the Government was close to reaching the 84 votes that would allow it to block the insistence and shield the veto. Finally, that was the number he achieved and, in this way, he obtained the second great parliamentary victory for La Libertad Avanza in the Chamber of Deputies, after the veto of retirement mobility. The panel was completed with five abstentions contributed by the four Misiones deputies from the Federal Encuentro bloc and Pablo Cervi, from the group of radicals who have been accompanying the Government.
Eight absent deputies did not appear on the panel: three from the Federal Meeting—Jorge Ávila, Ricardo López Murphy and Alejandra Torres—who was in the Palace yesterday but last night claimed to have Covid; for the UCR, Fernando Carbajal; by the PRO, Héctor Stefani; for the MID, Oscar Zago; Yolanda Vega from Salta and María Fernanda Ávila, from Unión por la Patria, who arrived at the Legislative Palace but notified the president of the Chamber that she was not fit and left.
Cristian Ritondo, from the PRO
When it comes to observing how each of the blocks voted, it is found that due to the insistence of the law, Unión por la Patria contributed 98 votes. The UCR added 27 of the 33 in the bloc, since deputies Luis Picat, José Tournier, Martín Arjol and Mariano Campero – four of those who voted in favor of the veto for retirement mobility – maintained the same position and accompanied the Government. The remaining two are Fernando Carbajal, who was absent on leave, and Pablo Cervi, who abstained, which favored the blocking of the veto. Added to that number was the support of Encuentro Federal, which provided 13 of the 16 seats it has.
Meanwhile, the blocks of the Civic Coalition (6) and the Left Front (5) added all their members to the positive vote. For the PRO, there were two in favor of the law: Álvaro González and Héctor Baldassi. A particular case was the Por Santa Cruz bloc, which has two members. One supported the insistence—Sergio Acevedo—and the other voted in favor of the veto—José Garrido. “Governor Vidal put an egg in each basket,” they noted in the room regarding the actions of the deputies who respond to the provincial head of state.
Due to the budget law, 50% of the Federal Innovation block was also present. The deputies from Salta and Río Negro accompanied, while the other 50% corresponds to the four deputies from Misiones—Alberto Arrúa, Carlos Alberto Fernández, Yamila Ruiz and Daniel Vancsik—who abstained, which ended up helping the ruling party.
Germán Martínez and Cecilia Moreau
The representative of the FE bloc, Lourdes Arrieta, voted for the first time against La Libertad Avanza and accompanied the positive vote, opposing the veto. The two San Juan deputies who make up the Production and Work bloc, Nancy Picón and María de los Ángeles Moreno, voted along the same lines, who also voted against the veto. Added together, the total is 160 deputies against the presidential decision.
On the side of upholding the veto, the ruling party had the leading voice. La Libertad Avanza contributed 39 votes of its own, the PRO did the same with 35, and one from CREO —Paula Omodeo—, two from the MID —Zago is traveling—, four radicals (Campero, Arjol, Tournier and Picat) joined this group. ) and three deputies from Tucumán from the Independencia bloc, together with the Santacruceño deputy, which made it possible to reach 84 votes.
Before the session, pessimism reigned among several legislators who sought to promote the rule, not only because they suspected that the Casa Rosada managed to convince several governors who believed on their side, but because they understood that it was a bad precedent before the discussion of the Budget 2025. “If we lose this, which is 0.14% of GDP, how are we going to discuss items when negotiating the Budget?” said a Peronist deputy who was quite upset by the result.
