They both have heavy surnames and a rather irregular present. Máximo Kirchner, the son of the two former presidents, is coming downhill, knowing that his leadership in the Buenos Aires PJ ends in March 2026 and accepting that his group La Cámpora scares more than it enchants. Martín Menem, the nephew of the Rioja leader of the nineties, managed to overcome the slope and confirm his continuity as head of the Chamber of Deputies after surviving the scandal of bribery in Disability and claiming himself as a shipowner in the October elections. Kirchner and Menem, Menem and Kirchner, but in their new generation, that of the heirs, they were probably destined to end up embracing, not in the light of the sun, but in an underground pact that became evident in the scandalous vote in the Lower House last week.
What was it that happened? That, as part of the libertarians’ disdain for Mauricio Macri’s PRO, the legislators who respond to Menem and those in columns under the leadership of Cristina and Máximo agreed to share the positions in the General Auditor’s Office of the Nation (AGN), one of the main control bodies of the State. The macristas aspired to occupy seats in that office, but Menem and Kirchner, Martín and Máximo – with the indispensable endorsement of Cristina and Karina Milei – negotiated and left the yellows staring with their palms against the glass. The third person who also participated in those conversations between roosters and midnight was the Kirchnerist Germán Martínez.
The reaction of the PRO, with the consummate betrayal, was immediate. Cristian Ritondo, the head of the Macrista deputies, announced that they would resort to Justice to invalidate that vote, although the most appropriate thing would be the Church, to go cry. That’s what they say on the side of the libertarians and the K, who are increasingly getting closer and identifying more with each other. The next step could be an agreement to fill the two vacant places on the Supreme Court: on the CFK side they proposed Senator Anabel Fernández Sagasti, while the ruling party put the name of Mariano Llorens, president of the Federal Chamber of Comodoro Py, on the table. And the PRO? He doesn’t know, he doesn’t answer.
In the case of the Court, the negotiators are others, the Kirchnerist Juan Martín Mena, a camper like Máximo, and the Secretary of Justice of the Government who answers to advisor Santiago Caputo, Sebastián Amerio. But what is repeated is the mechanism: the libertarians and the K make common cause, fill the vacant spaces of power, agree on legislative support in exchange for impunity – or why did the Clean File never come out? – and, the funniest thing, they leave the person who was supposed to be the true ally of the Government, the PRO, speechless with these pirouettes.
The thing is that the Peronist DNA pulls. Where there is a Kirchner and a Menem there is no place for a Macri.
