Milei's Government Secretly Negotiates with Kirchnerists for Supreme Court Nominations

The government of Javier Milei has discreetly reopened negotiations with Kirchnerism to fill the two vacancies on the Supreme Court of Justice, aiming to form a five-member tribunal for the first time in years. On the ruling party's side, Sebastián Amerio, Deputy Minister of Justice and a close advisor to presidential advisor Santiago Caputo, is acting; on the Kirchnerist side, the interlocutor is Juan Martín Mena, the former number two of the Ministry of Justice during the K governments and current Minister of Justice of the province of Buenos Aires under Axel Kicillof's administration. In the Casa Rosada, March 2026, with the start of the ordinary sessions, is being considered as a possible political window to reach an agreement, with the expectation of tackling the judicial year with a finally complete Court. Today, the highest court functions with only three stable members: Horacio Rosatti, Carlos Rosenkrantz, and Ricardo Lorenzetti. The "one-for-one" formula is completed with a tacit commitment: each side endorses the other's candidate to achieve the required two-thirds majority in the Senate. Two well-known figures in Argentine judicial politics are moving within the architecture of this understanding. The eventual arrival of the senator in the Court would, in fact, consecrate the inclusion of a figure directly identified with La Cámpora and hard Kirchnerism in an body called upon to review, among other things, the major corruption cases of the K cycle. Behind the personal names, a constant of Argentine politics emerges: even with a former head of state convicted and disqualified, and a president who built his career by attacking "corrupt Kirchnerism," the distribution of power in the Judiciary continues to be negotiated in closed-door meetings where party balances weigh more than the transparency of procedures or citizen confidence in institutions. The scheme being discussed in private is simple in appearance: a candidate from the ruling party and another proposed by Kirchnerist Peronism, without cross-vetoes, and with a basic premise that sparks strong institutional controversy: former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, convicted in the Vialidad case and disqualified for life from holding public office, continues to be consulted as a central figure when defining candidates for the head of the Judiciary. According to political and judicial sources, the name being pushed by the Government is that of Federal Appeals Court Judge Mariano Llorens, a member of the strategic Federal Chamber of Comodoro Py, a key court for the outcome of major corruption cases. The paradox is evident: while the ratifies her criminal liability and the seizure of hundreds of millions of pesos to the detriment of the State, the Peronist leadership still recognizes her as an authority to approve or veto candidates for the very Court that confirmed the ruling. In parallel, in official offices, a careful vote count is underway. Both have maintained an open channel for months, which had cooled when the Chamber of Cassation and then the Supreme Court were confirming Cristina Kirchner's conviction in Vialidad. The data that generates the most institutional noise is that, despite the six-year prison sentence and perpetual special disqualification for fraudulent administration against the State, the former Vice President still holds decisive weight in the selection of names for the country's highest court. On the other side, Kirchnerism proposes Senator Mendoza's Anabel Fernández Sagasti, a lawyer, La Cámpora leader, and one of Cristina Kirchner's most loyal lieutenants in the Upper House. To achieve majorities, resort is made to ad hoc judges (conjueces), a mechanism provided for but which, when prolonged over time, weakens the predictability and political authority of the Court's decisions. In the case of the Appeals Court judge, his departure from the Federal Chamber would alter the internal balance of a court whose composition is followed with a magnifying glass by all governments. The Executive's calculation is that, in addition to its own bloc and liberal allies, it will be essential to negotiate with senators who answer to powerful Peronist governors—such as those from Tucumán, Catamarca, or Santiago del Estero—to secure the two-thirds. The Government, while proclaiming a discourse of "battle against the caste," needs to stabilize the judicial front to advance with criminal reforms, changes to the accusatory system, and a punitive hardening agenda demanded by Milei's hardest electorate. The role of Llorens and Fernández Sagasti in this board exceeds their personal trajectories.