In a January with little activity in the three branches of the State, there was an official who did not stop. Diego Santilli was on a tour of the interiorr, at the beginning of the year, to negotiate with the governors the votes of their legislators and ensure Javier Milei’s first victories of the year in Congress.
The “Colo Tour” passed through a handful of provinces, He noted the governors’ claims and returned to Casa Rosada with many positive votes.
Travel.
Due to scheduling issues, Santilli did not arrive at the end of last week to travel to Corrientes and Misiones. It had been announced by the governors, but he had to excuse himself. He will go to the Litoral provinces when the extraordinary sessions are already underway.
Anyway, The Interior Minister’s dead line is set for mid-February. Until then, he has time to gather his will to obtain the approval of the labor reform and the juvenile criminal law. Bring with economic promises the votes that are elusive in the legislative process.
This January was furious: he was in Chubut with Ignacio Torres, in Chaco with Leandro Zdero, in San Juan with Marcelo Orrego, in Mendoza with Alfredo Cornejo, in Neuquén with Rolando Figueroa, in Salta with Gustavo Sáenz and in Entre Ríos with Rogelio Frigerio.
Each visit arrives with a premise: “no governor can be against a law that seeks to generate private employment, increase productivity and investments for the provinces and Argentina,” he tells the local leaders.
The majority accepts the minister’s premise bluntly, pero takes the opportunity to expose the claims that the provinces have with the Nation: works owed, items that are blocked in the Ministry of Economy and other requests. Santilli listens patiently and promises to manage. “Every time they go to the Interior it is to ask, never to give,” protests a senator from one of the provinces that the minister visited in January.
About the juvenile criminal law, which the Milei political table decided to include in extraordinary cases, there is an additional claim. If the lowering of the age of imputability is approved, those who will have to make the economic effort are the provinces: the governors will have to build institutes independent of the common prisons to house minors who commit crimes. There are many who pointed out this detail to Santilli: the government wants to score a legislative victory that, for the President, will have zero cost.
Future.
So much going back and forth across the country is not innocent. Being the puching ball in which the governors vent their anger against the President has a benefit: the protagonism. Santilli managed to successfully jump from PRO to La Libertad Avanza, quickly consolidate himself in the Government and gain Milei’s trust.
For this reason, the President authorized him to compete in Buenos Aires with the aim of succeeding Axel Kicillof in 2027. He already has a competitor: Sebastián Pareja is pursuing the same goal, although he has a more winding path. The fact is that the president of the libertarian party in the Province has the resistance of The Forces of Heaven, who use their networks to discredit him at all times.
Santilli used the stage of the Derecha Fest, on Tuesday the 27th in Mar del Plata, to begin to project himself towards the governorship: “We have to go and conquer each of the districts that are still in the hands of Kircherism,” he said. And he finished, as if he were a candidate in the campaign: “The challenge begins here in the province of Buenos Aires.”
