The appointment of three new members of the Auditor General of the Nation (AGN) unleashed a new political and judicial conflict in Congress. The appointments were made during the early hours of the morning, within the framework of an extensive session in Deputies, based on an agreement between Kirchnerism and La Libertad Avanza that left the PRO on the sidelines and motivated an immediate reaction from the yellow bloc, which decided to take the issue to Justice.
The vote, which gathered 186 affirmative votes, made it possible to fill key vacancies in the AGN and was promoted by the leadership of the lower house. However, the PRO denounced that the maneuver was irregular, that it was not included in the agenda of the session and that it violates the political balance that should govern the integration of the control body.
The auditors questioned by the PRO are Rita Mónica Almada, Juan Ignacio Forlón and Pamela Calletti. Almada was promoted by La Libertad Avanza; Forlón responds to Unión por la Patria and has already had a previous stint in the AGN; while Calletti was associated with the agreements with governors allied to the ruling party. The triad emerged from the sealed negotiation between Kirchnerism and the libertarian space, which ended up dynamiting the link with the PRO on this issue.
After the session, the block led by Cristian Ritondo announced that it would judicialize the designation, and it complied. The complaint points not only against the new auditors, but also against the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Martín Menem, and against the legislators who endorsed the vote, under the argument that progress was made on powers that did not correspond in that parliamentary context.
The conflict now opens a judicial front that puts the functioning of the AGN under the magnifying glass and exposes, once again, the internal tensions between the circumstantial allies of the ruling party and the PRO, which went from legislative accompaniment to direct confrontation when it came to State control positions.
