Santilli’s incorporation into the PRO, in 2003, came from the side of Buenos Aires Peronism. His “pass” was negotiated by Miguel Ángel Toma, then head of the City PJ and head of the Duhaldist SIDE. The other who was part of that negotiation between Macri and Toma was Cristian Ritondo, who also came from the PJ.
This was the school in which the brand new libertarian minister was forged. In the nineties, when he was a student at the University of Buenos Aires, he began to join the Peronist Youth. At the end of that decade he was part of Ramón “Palito” Ortega’s campaign, where he met other young promises of that space: Sergio Tomás Massa and Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, with whom he would later command the destinies of the City of Buenos Aires. Photos of him with the young Massa and Larreta still circulate on the networks from that adventure.
“My DNA is Peronist, but my family is the PRO,” he declared on a dozen occasions when he was still part of the yellow party. Those who know that world in depth swear that the historical distance that Macri had from him was conditioned by this past: the former president simply never liked the Peronists. Now Santilli will have the task of negotiating with several Peronist governors. Will his past in the PJ be useful to him?
