The Chamber of Deputies yesterday asstored to Javier Milei one of the toughest blows of his management: he rejected his vetoes to the Pediatric Emergency Law of the Garrahan Hospital and the university financing. But the defeat was not only from the president. He also dragged those who were encouraged to accompany him in that vote, a small group that was now politically marked.
Among them, two names stand out: Cristian Ritondo and Alejandro Finocchiaro, both of the Pro Buenos Aires. Ritondo, head of the block and the main articulator of the Alliance with Freedom advances, chose to hold Milei even in a uphill. Finocchiaro, former Minister of Education, repeated the same logic: he voted in favor of keeping his veto and was aligned with a ruling that, paradoxically, ended up being more weakened. His decision was read inside and outside Congress as a political immolation: they stopped with Milei just when most were about to turn their backs.
The result is eloquent. The vote left the two laws, consolidated a broad opposition front in defense of hospitals and universities, and showed the isolated president, with just a handful of legislators on his side. Ritondo and Finocchiaro, referents of weight within the PRO, were associated with failure and with a difficult political cost to explain in an electoral year.
The case of Lisandro Nieri (UCR, Mendoza) and Pablo Cervi (UCR, Neuquén) is more diffuse, but also significant. Nieri, a man of Alfredo Cornejo, was absent in the vote of the pediatric emergency – a gesture that favored the ruling party – and then accompanied the veto in university financing. Cervi, who in his province headed ballots in alliance with Libertad progresses, was also among those who backed the government in the one clipped by the universities. They do not appear in all nominal lists, but their political alignment allows their vote to be inferred in favor of the ruling party.
In politics, failed plays leave traces. Ritondo and Finocchiaro chose to stand on the side of Milei at the worst moment, and Nieri and Cervi accompanied from their radical benches with gestures that underpin the strategy of the Casa Rosada. The balance was the same: the president lost, and they were on the wrong side of a defeat that will be recorded as a turning point.
