The journalist Nelson Castro came to the crossroads of the absence of Victoria Villarruel at the Tedeum on May 25 and aimed directly at the president Javier Milei in his Rivadavia radio editorial. “The fact of not inviting her is a regrettable fact that represents a disdain for the institutional,” said Castro, and added: “It can be done badly or well, but the vice presidency has an institutional rank, no matter who it is. The institutionality marks, not the person.”
For the journalist, the issue transcends the personal relationship between Milei and Villarruel. “Afterwards, if you want, you don’t greet her, but she has institutional value,” he said, and recalled that the functions of the vice presidency are “two and very clear: preside over the Senate and replace the president due to travel or illness.” Castro also evoked the episode last year, when Milei did not shake hands with either Villarruel or the head of the Buenos Aires government. Jorge Macri upon entering the Metropolitan Cathedral.
This Monday’s Tedeum offered a markedly different scene compared to that of May 25, 2025. The Archbishopric of Buenos Aires clarified that the decision to exclude the vice president from the event was the Government’s own, and Villarruel’s absence contrasted with the treatment given to Macri: the president greeted him with an affectionate hug, in a turn that summarizes the reordering of relations within the official space. Last year’s sequence had occurred a few days after the local election of May 18, 2025, in which Manuel Adorni won in the City and relegated the PRO to third place in its main historical stronghold.
The exclusion of Villarruel from the event most loaded with institutional symbolism on the national calendar rekindles the tension between the vice president and the hard core of the Government. The vice president appears displaced from the presidential circle of trust, while the link between the head of the Buenos Aires Government and the Casa Rosada moves within a logic of tension, competition, negotiation and simultaneous coexistence.
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