Horacio Rodríguez Larreta confirms midterms run after PRO expulsion talk

Former Buenos Aires City mayor Horacio Rodríguez Larreta has confirmed he will run for office in this year’s midterms, declaring that one of his reasons for doing so is that the capital “smells of piss.”

Rodríguez Larreta, 59, announced his move in an eye-catching post on social media, stating that he would “take part in the elections on May 18 in the City of Buenos Aires.”

Criticising Jorge Macri, his successor in office and PRO party ally, Rodríguez Larreta detailed a list of complaints and criticised the current mayor’s administration of the federal capital. 

His comments will exacerbate an ongoing rift within PRO, as the party struggles to reassert itself during Javier Milei’s Presidency.

"For the city we made together. Because Buenos Aires is bad and nobody listens to you. Because it is dirty, because it is sad. Because there are no more [public] works. Because there is a smell of piss," said the former two-term mayor, who left office in December 2023.

"I come back because it hurts me. Because I know every block. Every pavement, every [street] corner. I'm coming back to you. I'm coming back because I love you. I'm coming back because I love Buenos Aires,” he declared.

In an interview with the LN+ news channel this week, Rodríguez Laretta said he wanted to improve the quality of life in the capital.

"I can't stand idly by and watch the City fall apart," he said, distancing himself from the incumbent administration. “The City is not doing well. There are fewer police officers on the streets, more crime, and less cleanliness."

The post was made two days before the deadline for the registration of alliances for the City’s legislative elections, though it remains unclear under what banner Rodríguez Larreta will compete. 

Reports over the weekend suggested that Rodríguez Larreta is on the verge of being expelled from PRO, which he helped co-found. The membership of his former rival for the party’s presidential nomination, Patricia Bullrich, is also said to be in the balance.

PRO is currently engaged in negotiations with the ruling La Libertad Avanza party over an electoral alliance in Buenos Aires Province, the country's main electoral battleground.

On Monday, PRO national deputies Diego Santilli and Cristian Ritondo met with President Javier Milei and Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei at the Casa Rosada for talks.

Rodríguez Larreta has mostly kept a low profile since being eliminated in primaries for the party’s presidential nomination in the 2023 election. 

Before his disastrous defeat to Bullrich, his hairline rival, Rodríguez Larreta was seen as the frontrunner for the Presidency.

Prior to that, he served eight years as mayor of the nation’s capital, succeeding former president Mauricio Macri, PRO’s founder and current chair.

Since the change of government in December 2023, PRO has proved to be a valuable ally to President Milei, supporting La Libertad Avanza in Congress to pass legislation and win tight votes.

Rodríguez Larreta, however, has become one of Milei’s fiercest critics and is often a target for presidential abuse online. 

The former mayor’s exit from PRO removes its main centrist voice and confirms the party’s shift to the right under Milei.

In his television interview confirming his candidacy, Rodríguez Larreta admitted that relations with former president Macri are “very distant.” 

“I uphold the values ​​of PRO as I did on day one. One of the main ones was good management, a method of governing. Those are the values ​​of PRO. I continue to believe in dialogue and diversity,” said the former mayor.

Bullrich, by contrast, has become Milei’s most vocal backers. Yet she has been out of favour within PRO since quitting her position as chair to join the La Libertad Avanza leader’s government as security minister (a position she previously served in Macri’s 2015-2019 administration).

Tensions within the party’s ranks has seen several heavyweights break ground to voice their opinion. 

Former culture minister Pablo Avelluto compared PRO’s treatment of the former mayor as akin to Stalinism.

"The PRO, my former party, now Stalinist, anti-democratic and authoritarian, decided to expel one of its founders, who served for 16 years as chief-of-staff and head of government of CABA. More alone than ever. Less PRO than ever," remarked Avelluto in a post on social media.

Avelluto is a member of Rodríguez Larreta’s newish centrist think tank/party Movimiento al Desarrollo (MAD), the likely banner for his upcoming run for the office.