The news these days shows the two new Government officials, Manuel Adorni and Diego Santilli, assuming their new positions, and the President hugging his ministers – and even pogo-ing with some – with James Brown music in the background. They are scenes that speak of the joy over the electoral result and the renewal of the Cabinet that Milei had promised for after the elections: new faces, new phase. More extensive, according to the propaganda message that comes from the Casa Rosada. Although that statement, we will see, is misleading.
The openness promised by libertarians, and also demanded by the United States at the time of the 40 billion dollar economic bailout was crystallized, for now remained only in gestures: calls for dialogue, officials who supposedly belong to other spaces and even a Milei who has momentarily stopped insulting… But what is behind this staging? Let’s break it down point by point: in the call for dialogue with the governors, Santiago Caputo’s message was that the ruling party asked them for support in Congress so that the Budget Law erased with the elbow all the social improvements that the opposition had imposed on Milei in the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. As for the extra-party ministers, as is the case of Santilli, the truth is that “El Colo” had already turned purple a while ago and that his relationship with Mauricio Macri was more strained than ever. Therefore, he is not an incorporation of the PRO, but a full-fledged libertarian, “karino” for more information, like the other debutant, the Chief of Staff, Adorni. That is to say, the two lockers that were opened in Milei’s staff were covered by loyalists of the presidential sister. Where is the supposed opening?
Macri, the government ally whom everyone pointed out as indispensable in the event of a defeat in the October elections, became expendable after the unexpected victory: neither the former president nor the non-K governors are seen as the guarantors of governability. That was ensured by the votes, in addition to the loan from Donald Trump and Scott Bessent. Such is the coldness of the libertarians towards Macri that, after the last round of Milanese in Olivos, the engineer left indigested by the arrogance of his host. “He didn’t offer me anything,” he told his interlocutors at the end of the meeting, during which Milei, according to Macri’s version, explained to him that the Argentines “had rewarded him” because “he did everything well.”
He had read the result as a blank check. Is that openness?
