MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Milei calls for extraordinary parliamentary sessions

Some of the measures to be discussed clearly seek to prevent Cristina Fernández de Kirchner from running

Argentine President Javier Milei Friday signed the decree summoning Congress to extraordinary sessions between Jan. 20 and Feb. 21 to debate the suppression of the Mandatory, Open, and Simultaneous Primary (PASO) elections, the clean record requirement for candidates, and other initiatives that, according to the Executive, cannot wait until the new Legislature starting on March 1.

Presidential Spokesman Manuel Adorni also confirmed that the so-called “Anti-Mafia Law,” a modification to the Criminal Procedure Code to provide a “Trial in Absentia” and other measures such as the Organic Law of Political Parties and their Financing would be put under consideration.

In the Libertarian Government's view, the PASO was “a million-costing survey at the service only of politics and to the detriment of the economy and the time of the Argentines,” who in 2023 needed to vote three times to get Milei elected. The government insists the mechanism needs to be lifted altogether, while Unión por la Patria (UxP) and Propuesta Republicana (PRO) would rather put it on hold for just the 2025 mid-term elections.

The clean record bill, originally penned by PRO Congresswoman Silvia Lospenatto, seeks to prevent people with confirmed convictions from running for office, clearly targeting former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. Milei was reported Friday to have spoken on the telephone with Lospenatto to have her draft a new bill in this regard because he would not endorse some parts of the previous one.

It is yet to be defined whether LLA will run separately or in a nationwide alliance with former President Mauricio Macri's PRO, with whom negotiations have been going on lately, according to local media. Milei reportedly intends to bring aboard all those putting freedom as the central axis of their proposals and thus reach a nationwide agreement with PRO.

“First let us support the laws ahead of us and then let us talk about elections. Let's try to find a consensus to carry the projects forward. That is what we are working on,” Macri was quoted as saying.

Other points to be discussed are the Senate's consent for the appointments of Ariel Lijo and Manuel García-Mansilla to the Supreme Court for already existing vacancies.