Argentina’s Senate has voted to back a bill that suspends the primaries for this year’s midterm elections, handing a timely boost to President Javier Milei.
Granting their approval, senators have all but ensured the bill to halt the Primary, Open, Simultaneous and Mandatory Elections (PASO) will pass into law. The bill only requires a signature from the President.
The bill was approved by the lower house Chamber of Deputies last week, with 162 votes in favour, 55 against and 28 abstentions.
The Senate vote broke down as 43 affirmative, 20 negative, with six abstentions.
The state-funded primaries are used to select the candidates who will represent parties in the elections.
The Milei administration has argued that fiscal savings and the electoral convenience of skipping the PASO primaries made the motion worthwhile.
It initially sent a bill to Congress last October. That version proposed the elimination of the PASO primaries altogether, as well as other amendments to the Constitution and the financing of political parties.
Lacking support for the total elimination of the PASOs, the government arrived at a consensus with allies and moderates, yielding to a suspension of this year’s primaries before the midterms. The 60 articles of the original text were reduced to five.
Political forces will be able to hold primaries voluntarily to elect candidates for national office, but they will have to bear the costs.
The updated proposal was backed Thursday by the entirety of the ruling La Libertad Avanza caucus, the Las Provincias Unidas bloc and PRO, among others.
"The PASOs, which were presented to resolve the lack of consensus, have proved to be an expensive poll that has increased state spending," said La Libertad Avanza Senator Bruno Olivera Lucero during the session.
Eleven Kirchnerite senators also backed the bill, recreating a split among the opposition Peronist coalition in the lower house.
Political scientist Paula Clerici said the measure could benefit the government, because if "the opposition fragments," sectors could break away to run on their own slates.
Support from the pro-dialogue opposition and Peronism-Kirchnerism granted the government a valuable victory after a troubling week.
In a session marked by the fallout of the so-called ‘cryptogate’ scandal – involving President Javier Milei’s questionable promotion of the ‘’$LIBRA’ cryptocurrency – lawmakers initially attempted to set up an investigative commission to probe the head of state and his inner circle on the scandal.
The initiative, which required a two-thirds majority in the chamber, fell short by one vote. Similar requests to summon Presidential Chief-of-Staff Karina Milei and Cabinet Chief Guillermo Francos over the scandal also failed to come to fruition.
Comments