The governor of La Pampa province, Sergio Ziliotto, will meet on Friday at the Casa Rosada with Minister of the Interior Diego Santilli. It is expected that the meeting will be without excessive pleasantries and photo smiles, as the provincial leader was one of the most staunch Peronist opponents of the Javier Milei administration. A former ally of Alberto Fernández and close to Axel Kicillof, Ziliotto was among what the government called the "axis of evil": a list of Justicialist Party governors who did not support the May Pact and with whom the government saw no point in maintaining even an institutional dialogue. Along with Kicillof, Ricardo Quintela (La Rioja) and Gildo Insfrán (Formosa), the Pampean is part of the select group of Peronist leaders openly confronting the libertarian administration. However, Ziliotto's methods are more moderate than those of his Peronist colleagues. Ziliotto warned that if the government calls for dialogue, "it must be a broad call." With that in mind, the governor will arrive for the meeting with Santilli, who knows a thing or two about leading Peronists (the current Minister of the Interior got his start as a young leader of Buenos Aires Peronism before his leap to the PRO). Re-elected for a second term, Ziliotto also arrives with the backing of his triumph in the October elections: the "We Defend La Pampa" front obtained 44.5% of the vote, surpassing the "La Libertad Avanza" alliance, which had 43.6 percent. It is expected that the issue will be on the list of complaints that La Pampa will bring to the government. As reported by the Argentine News Agency, the last meeting between the two jurisdictions was on November 5, and the next is scheduled for December 10, that is, next week. At that meeting, both jurisdictions will have to report on the status of negotiations to reach an understanding that will end the controversy. The government of La Pampa, and this is a claim in which Ziliotto took the lead, had filed an urgent injunction with the Supreme Court due to the complications it is facing in terms of financing due to the deficit caused by cuts in contributions from the national state since December 10, 2023, when Milei took office.
