President Javier Milei suffered a stinging defeat in Congress on Wednesday as deputies in the lower house repealed a controversial decree to dramatically boost funding for Argentina’s national intelligence services.
Amid strong tension in the Chamber of Deputies, opposition Peronist lawmakers joined forces with the right-wing PRO party, who have often supported Milei’s party in Congress, to reject a bid to raise the intelligence services’ budget by more than 100 billion pesos.
A statement rejecting emergency decree DNU 656 was approved by 156 deputies, with 52 voting against and six abstentions after expiry of the 10-day period given the Permanent Bilateral Commission to issue their ruling of approval or rejection.
President Javier Milei’s decree was the target of intense criticism due to the scale of the reserved funds assigned to SIDE and the secrecy of its supposed use, triggering a split between the ruling coalition and its main allies.
One of the chief opponents was ex-president Mauricio Macri, a key background figure to Wednesday’s session, who has harshly questioned top presidential advisor Santiago Caputo, the man in charge of monitoring the intelligence agency headed by Sergio Neiffert.
Quorum for the vote was provided by the presence of 140 deputies consisting of the Unión por la Patria, Encuentro Federal and Coalición Cívica caucuses, a score of Unión Cívica Radical lawmakers and strikingly five legislators from the right-wing PRO party – Álvaro González, Daiana Fernández Molero, Florencia De Sensi, Héctor Stefani and Sofía Brambilla – who normally vote in tandem with the government.
Other ruling party allies accompanying the opposition were two MID (Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo) deputies and Carolina Píparo, of Buenos Aires Libre.
‘Immoral’
“It’s immoral when the government says that there is no money for pensioners and teachers but there is for spies,” said lawmaker Pablo Juliano (UCR-Buenos Aires Province) on the floor, celebrating the decree’s rejection.
PRO caucus chief Cristian Ritondo justified his stance against the decree by contrasting the proposed funding with President Milei’s “no hay plata” (“there is no money”) rhetoric and criticising the lack of transparency in its intended use.
"Economic progress requires strong and transparent institutions and an austere government. For PRO such values are not negotiable," said the PRO leader.
Senator Martín Lousteau (UCR-City), a key target of President Milei’s criticism, declared: “There are intelligence activities which have been carried out for many years and Argentina does not need.”
Earlier in the day, Lousteau had told Radio Rivadavia that his party’s deputies should vote “against the DNU granting 100 billion pesos to SIDE for confidential spending."
"There is no kind of agreement with the government. The aim is that the bicameral intelligence [committee] controls why there are activities dating back many years which the country does not need,” he told the radio station.
Lousteau maintained Wednesday that there is "a major and very healthy commitment to democracy” and that the intelligence services must “adjust” to constitutional norms “guaranteeing individual rights."
“We Argentines want the money to be spent accordingly and have to know how those funds are going to be expended. Let them explain what the money will be used for," he argued.
Intelligence blows
Congressional rejection of the decree is a harsh reverse for the Milei government in general and for Caputo, the administration’s new point-man for the intelligence system, in particular.
La Libertad Avanza suffered a setback earlier this month when it lost the chairmanship of the Bicameral Committee to Monitor Intelligence Organisations and Activities to Lousteau in a cunning pincer movement which the economist executed with the help of Kirchnerism.
Caputo, the presidential spin doctor, was unable to place Senator Edgardo Kueider, a Peronist ally considered a traitor by his former Partido Justicialista colleagues, as committee chair. Opposition lawmakers and Lousteau will now be able to put the activities of the revived SIDE under greater scrutiny.
Rumours in political circles speculate that the espionage agency’s swollen reserved funds were to be used to spy on and harass opposition politicians, as occurred during Mauricio Macri’s 2015-2019 presidency when the then-AFI was run by his allies Gustavo Arribas and Silvia Majdalani.
Government officials reacted angrily to the rejection of the decree.
Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos pointed the finger at Macri and the former president's manouevring of his PRO troops.
"Macri is wrong," he said. "In this case, the former president is wrong," the official said in a radio interview.
"His government has had several cases and complaints about these issues. It knows that the state needs funds to allocate to national security," said Francos.
"He is wrong, he should have consulted [with us]. The funds allocated to these tasks, due to their characteristics, are not meant to be public," he said, referencing the lack of transparency over expenditure.
Stating that the disagreement was down to politics, the minister said PRO "has a political need to differentiate itself," driven by concern over President Milei's popularity.
Macri "is concerned because when you look at the opinion polls, 53 percent say they would support a candidate that President Milei supports," sad Francos.
"I see that there is a need for the political sector of the former president to look for its own space," he declared.
Security Minister Patricia Bullrich, the former preisdential candidate for PRO who jumped ship to join Milei's goverrnment after last year's election, accused her party allies of "joining with Kirchnerism" to choose "the side of the mafia, the narco-traffickers and terrorism."
"The DNU of funds for SIDE is to take care of Argentines. The deputies who voted with Kirchnerism to reject it, chose to side with the mafias, drug-traffickers and terrorism. Now they must take responsibility!" she wrote in the post on social media.
Bullrich, a hardline security hawk who is at odds with Macri, said the rejection of the decree was being "celebrated by criminals."
– TIMES/NA/PERFIL
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