“It harms us,” confessed a national Peronist deputy from the interior of the country in a dialogue with the Argentine News Agency (NA). Jalil, for his part, has practically made the decision to remove his four deputies from the Peronist bloc, which will be called “Fuerza Patria” starting in December. To deliver the blow, the Catamarca deputies are waiting for instructions from the governor, who demands that the Casa Rosada transfer Yacimientos Mineros Agua de Dionisio to the provincial orbit. Last Thursday, the former governor of Catamarca, Lucía Corpacci, was at the headquarters of the national Justicialist Party located on Matheu Street for a year-end gathering organized by the Formosan José Mayans with incumbent, outgoing, and incoming senators. There, Corpacci reaffirmed with her peers her commitment to exhaust efforts to prevent her fellow provincials from leaving the Fuerza Patria bloc. The political data is that the senators of Convicción Federal, who still belong to the Unión por la Patria inter-bloc in the upper house, missed the invitation, confirming that everything is broken between Jalil and the national PJ. Therefore, beyond expressions of goodwill and the will shown, the flight of the Catamarca deputies from the Peronist blocs in both chambers of the National Congress seems already a foregone conclusion. “I don’t want to be harsh, but we call traitors those who are not consistent with what they say, with our history,” warned the national deputy for UP from Chaco, Aldo Leiva, days ago, as a final verdict. If Noguera and Jalil's four confirm their exile (forced or voluntary, as the case may be) from Peronism, Fuerza Patria will be reduced to 92 members, just one more than La Libertad Avanza has secured for the legislative renewal. But the problems for Fuerza Patria do not end there, as it is in doubt whether the deputy elected by the Justicialist Front of San Luis, Jorge “Gato” Fernández, will join the bloc or migrate to another destination. A worrying signal in this sense was the absence of the San Luis senator from Convicción Federal, Fernando Salino, at the national PJ meeting. The Salta governor, Sáenz, is operating very actively to gather all the loose pieces that are detaching from Unión por la Patria. His idea is to expand the Innovación Federal bloc, a usual partner of La Libertad Avanza in each legislative debate. Buenos Aires, November 22 (NA) – the bloc of national deputies of Unión por la Patria is going through decisive moments for its immediate future, and amid a wave of rumors about imminent defections, the concrete threat of losing the first minority to La Libertad Avanza looms. The danger of collapse is real. Those in Peronism who cling to the hope of preserving the size the bloc had during the first two years of the libertarian government live in a state of altered reality. The president of the bloc, Germán Martínez, seeks to close ranks in his troop and activate a damage control operation to stop a still-contained hemorrhage. While La Libertad Avanza grows like a “pacman” that devours everything in its path, the Peronist bloc is crumbling due to the “betrayal” of the governors of Tucumán, Osvaldo Jaldo, of Catamarca, Raúl Jalil, and of Salta, Gustavo Sáenz, who had been very close to Sergio Massa. The Tucumán governor had already turned in January 2024 during the negotiation of the first Bases law, withdrawing his three deputies from Unión por la Patria to create a bloc politically subject to the government, paradoxically called “Independencia”. The decision was resisted by deputies Pablo Yedlin and Carlos Cisneros, who answer to former governor Juan Manzur, but they could not stop the drain. After the October elections, the doubt fell on Javier Noguera, the deputy elected on the Peronist list with the unitary support of Jaldo, Manzur, and La Cámpora. To assume the position of national legislator, this journalist and lawyer resigned as mayor of Tafí Viejo and was replaced by his wife, Alejandra Rodríguez, to complete the term. Although there was a commitment from Noguera to join the Peronist bloc, his destiny will be the Independencia bloc. Apparently, Jaldo played hard to sway the decision, as he would have threatened Noguera with withholding resources from Tafí Viejo. “These are tricks of old politics that unfortunately still work in many places. Incorporating the diaspora of Peronism. Currently, Innovación Federal has eight members, adding the Salta natives, the Misiones Front of Concordia, and the Río Negro's Agustín Domingo. The latter ends his term in December, but the loss will be compensated by the signing of the Neuquén's Karina Maureira. Sáenz traveled to Buenos Aires specifically to 'push through' the creation of an XL version of Innovación Federal, and began efforts to add the Catamarca deputies of Jalil and the Tucumán deputies from the Independencia bloc. The only good news for Fuerza Patria in the midst of this storm is that the seven Santiago del Estero deputies who answer to Gerardo Zamora will, in principle, remain in the Peronist bloc. Even so, it seems difficult to avoid the inevitable: that La Libertad Avanza snatches the status of first minority from them. “We are going to have a hard time (retaining the first minority). Evidently, they are very peculiar opposition blocs because they vote for everything for them,” complained a national deputy from UP in a dialogue with the Argentine News Agency, referring to the game played by allied government blocs such as Innovación Federal, where the new defectors could land. The discussion over the first minority is not neutral, as it has very concrete effects. By becoming the largest force in the Chamber of Deputies, La Libertad Avanza can take political control of a greater number of commissions (occupying the presidencies), have more representatives in each of these bodies, and could also claim the first vice-presidency of the chamber, currently held by Cecilia Moreno (Unión por la Patria), saving Menem from headaches. The Government is operating very strongly. How does it plan to enlarge the combo? And it has accomplices, some who still call themselves opponents.
