Argentina’s Senate failed to convene Thursday after the ruling La Libertad Avanza caucus deliberately withheld quorum to block a congressional interpellation of Cabinet Chief Manuel Adorni. Adorni, who is under judicial investigation over an unexplained growth in his personal assets and wealth, is under heavy pressure and faces calls for his resignation. To date, however, President Javier Milei has stood by his man and the head of state shows no sign of backing down. In recent weeks, lawmakers in Congress have attempted to summon the
official for questioning and a potential no confidence vote. Faced with mounting pressure for that to happen, the ruling party on Thursday tried a different tactic: refusing to sit down. Ruling party caucus leader, Senator Patricia Bullrich, ordered her La Libertad Avanza peers to remain standing in the chamber rather than take their seats, ensuring the session collapsed before quorum could be reached and debate could begin. Allies from the Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) and several provincial caucuses followed suit. Only a handful of legislators
sat down when acting Senate president Bartolomé Abdala formally closed the sitting. “They should have guaranteed the numbers, but they didn’t sit down,” Bullrich told reporters, placing blame on the Kirchnerite opposition, which had pushed for the interpellation with its allies. The failure of the session means all other business was put aside. Peronist caucus leader José Mayans revealed, however, that his bloc had also withheld quorum in protest at a last-minute procedural manoeuvre by Bullrich, who had changed the threshold required to bring the
interpellation to an immediate floor vote from an absolute majority to two-thirds – a bar the opposition claimed was unconstitutional. The session’s collapse marked the second consecutive day of congressional paralysis: the lower Chamber of Deputies had also failed to convene Wednesday over the same dispute. The opposition PRO party, which had tabled its own interpellation bill, condemned both sides. “Neither La Libertad Avanza nor Kirchnerism provided quorum,” said PRO caucus president Martín Goerling. “We will keep pushing so that Argentines get the explanations they
deserve.” The Constitutional Affairs Commission is now set to meet Wednesday to consider interpellation requests, with a floor vote targeted for July 8. Despite the efforts, analysts say the shield around Adorni cannot hold indefinitely, as the ruling coalition will be unable to stop a committee report from advancing in the Constitutional Affairs Commission – Peronism and its allies together hold the majority needed to sign a dispatch for consideration in the chamber floor. Adorni’s travels and asset growth have paralysed the Senate’s legislative agenda
for three months, also delaying a government-backed bill on private property rights and seven judicial appointments. Fraying support Highlighting the stress the Adorni issue is placing on the government’s allies, former national deputy Esteban Bullrich announced his “irrevocable resignation” from PRO on Thursday, citing as his reason “the protection afforded to Manuel Adorni” by the centre-right party. Esteban Bullrich, who has mostly kept a low profile since being diagnosed with the progressive, fatal neurodegenerative disease ALS, complained that his once-party allies had deliberately failed to
provide quorum in the lower house on Wednesday. In a letter addressed to Mauricio Macri, president and founder of the PRO, Bullrich – a former national education minister – stated that “for some time now, I have found it difficult to recognise in many of the party’s decisions the spirit that gave rise to us” as a political force. Today there is “an ever-widening gap between the principles we claim to uphold and the decisions we ultimately take,” said the ex-lawmaker. “Remaining in the party
meant accepting silences and decisions with which I could no longer identify,” he added, stating that “the protection afforded to Manuel Adorni was, for me, the event that finally made that distance clear.” “When political expediency begins to outweigh ethical responsibility, leadership loses its deepest meaning,” she asserted, adding that “loyalty to an organisation cannot take precedence over loyalty to one’s own conscience,” he concluded.
Manuel Adorni, La Libertad Avanza, Patricia Bullrich, Senate quorum, interpellation, Javier Milei, constitutional affairs commission, July 8 vote, Esteban Bullrich resignation, ALS, Martín Goerling, José Mayans, Bartolomé Abdala