Patricia Bullrich announces support for Javier Milei ahead of the runoff

2023-10-25 16:20:24

Patricia Bullrich supports Milei in the runoff

It’s official: Together for Change (JxC) has cracked and the waters are parting between those who support the far-right and ultra-libertarian candidate, Javier Mileyand those who have not yet defined their inclination, but could be closer to the Peronist Sergio Massa. Last night, the former presidential candidate of the JxC, Patricia Bullrich announced that she will support Milei in the second electoral round, which represents a call to his electorate by giving him the vote.

This is not exactly unexpected, because the same night he accepted his defeat he slipped that he would not support Massa, because he is the representative of the current government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Kirchner, whom he points out as the architects of the ongoing economic debacle.

In the other corner of JxC, the Radical Civic Union (UCR) that makes up this coalition together with the PRO, has not yet made its position as a party transparent.

Bullrich and his not so surprising support for Milei

Although it was likely that he would support him, due to the ideological closeness between the two, Milei repeatedly attacked Bullrich not only in the two presidential debates but also in the media. She claimed that she had been a guerrilla and that she had even committed an attack in a kindergarten in her youth. This earned Milei a criminal complaint for defamation and incitement to hatred.

But it seems that Bullrich left this in the past with his new support, and with the suggestion that he will be incorporated into a potential ultra-libertarian government, in one of the few ministries that will survive the “chainsaw” he promised.

Currently, the PRO leader is meeting at her residence with her key collaborators to share with them the content of her next statement. This meeting follows a long early morning that included a meeting with Mauricio Macri and Milei himself, followed by the unexpected postponement, without a set date, of a meeting planned between the party leaders for 11 in the morning.

The night before, rumors circulated about a secret meeting between Macri and Milei, and there was even mention of a telephone conversation between Macri and Bullrich with Milei. These rumors were denied by members of the environment of both, but this morning sources from the PRO and Libertad Avanza confirmed that indeed a dinner was held and that progress was made in a political agreement.

According to this agreement, Macri’s party leans towards the libertarian option as a strategy to avoid Sergio Massa’s victory in the elections.. However, uncertainty arises around the position of the party’s dialogue wing, led by Horacio Rodríguez Larretawhich advocates neutrality as a means to avoid divisions in the Together for Change coalition.

This morning, the prominent radical leader Ernesto Sanz, one of the founders of the coalition, anticipated that there would be a rupture in Together for Change if the PRO decides to support Milei. At 2 p.m., the members of the UCR National Committee will meet to discuss the position they will adopt in the second round of elections. This occurs in a context of divided opinions among some leaders who openly support Massa as a clear sign of rejection of the option represented by Milei.