MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Argentina: Ruling bloc in the Senate breaks up and a new bench emerges

The ruling party will have even more difficulties to achieve, with allies, the quorum of 37 seats necessary to enable a session in the Upper House. ”

A group of Argentine senators announced on Wednesday their withdrawal from the bloc of the ruling Frente de Todos in the Upper House and their decision to form their own bench, in the run-up to the complex electoral process that the South American country will undergo this year.

Senators Guillermo Snopek, Alejandra Vigo, Edgardo Kueider, Carlos Espínola and María Eugenia Catalfano will form the Federal Unity bloc, leaving the Frente de Todos with 31 seats, out of the total 72 seats in the Senate, a chamber presided over by the Vice-President of the country, Cristina Fernández.

Thus, the ruling party will have even more difficulties to achieve, with allies, the quorum of 37 seats necessary to enable a session in the Upper House.

“We formed today the Federal Unity block with the objective of giving us a strategy to favor the interests of the interior of the country”, said in social networks Edgardo Kueider.

The senator assured that the block will work “seeking consensus” and pointed out “the need for there to be an alternative within the Senate”.

“The current social, economic and political current context generates new demands. Therefore, we have the responsibility to legislate in a space that provides a truly federal view, focusing on the daily problems that our provinces go through”, he said.

The parliamentarians who decided to create their own bloc are aligned with the Peronism of the center, leaning on certain provincial governors, confronted with Kirchnerism and disenchanted with the administration of President Alberto Fernández.

This so-called “federal Peronism” constitutes a political nucleus, with an important flow of votes of its own in view of the presidential elections to be held in Argentina this year.

EFE