It was the most traumatic departure of a official from the libertarian government, the most damaging; the one that consumed the most time, the one that most ruined the symbolic capital of the fight against corruption. But in reality, with Manuel Adorni, just a Chief of Staff left. The magnitude that the whole story took was the result of erratic crisis management by the government, particularly by the President, who defended his official as much as he could, without evaluating alternatives. In the end, he ended up in the worst possible place: he absorbed all the cost of supporting him for almost four months, only to accept his resignation in the face of the inevitability of his fate.
Adorni’s fate was sealed on Thursday afternoon, after the failed Senate session. What appeared to be a victory for the ruling party for having managed to lift the session due to lack of quorum was actually a veiled ultimatum. The allies had given the government a shortcut to buy time, but only in exchange for the President himself removing his Chief of Staff; otherwise, the legislative firing squad would be activated in the coming weeks.
Patricia Bullrich spoke that same night with Karina Milei and delivered a devastating message: there was no more political room in Congress to support Adorni, only a window of time until Wednesday, when the Constitutional Affairs committee had been convened. The presidential sister, for the first time since the scandal began, accepted that the situation was unsustainable and activated the exit plan. «Let me talk to Javier about it, because he’s traveling,» was the short but sufficient response. The President had left for Spain still with the idea of resisting the onslaught, although he already perceived the inevitable. From that moment, the outcome was written. The siblings had been talking privately about the issue for at least three weeks, but only that day did they agree to end the bloodletting. Governability was beginning to be at risk if Congress was canceled.
Until early in the week, Karina was still making efforts to support Adorni, to the point that she accompanied him in the meetings he called at the Casa Rosada to explain his financial arguments to LLA senators. But the staging backfired. The Chief of Staff sprinkled the meetings with arrogant phrases and a budgetary nonchalance that scared off his own legislators. He seemed Albertized, as if the former president had infected him with that denialist impulse he so often displayed. «It was a very strange conversation, he explained his arguments as if all the evidence that was already known didn’t exist,» one witness described. Karina witnessed that scene probably intuiting the future.
The next day, a bizarre scene occurred in the Chamber of Deputies session. When the RIGI 2 was about to be voted on, Karina and Sharif Menem entered the official box, and then a sector of the ruling party bench, as a welcome, began to sing in the middle of the chamber «Adorni is not leaving.» Perhaps they had not noticed that the score was beginning to change.
But it was the Senate that was the scene of the fatal shot. There were three key moments there. On Tuesday in parliamentary labor, the criterion from the previous week was changed and it was established that an interpellation required two-thirds to be approved if it did not have a report. In this case, Bullrich reversed her own position and followed a request from the government. On Wednesday, «the 44» met, the heterogeneous group that includes the ruling party and its oscillating allies. There were two positions. A harder one, embodied by the head of Pro in the Senate, Martín Goerling, who insisted on a request for interpellation with a date for July 8. His position was to move forward and assume the responsibility of toppling the Chief of Staff. He was accompanied by some provincials, such as Alejandra Vigo. Another sector, including the radicalism of Eduardo Vischi and other provincials like Carlos Espínola, argued that two-thirds were necessary or to enable the issue in the Constitutional Affairs committee, which is what was finally done. The underlying goal was to give the government a margin of time to act before Wednesday.
«They opened a window for us, but if Milei didn’t act, on Wednesday they would liquidate Manuel,» said an LLA interlocutor. That is, even the most contemplative would not maintain their good disposition starting next week. If the shielding of Adorni was insisted upon, what followed was a legislative carnage with unforeseen effects. On Thursday, the ruling party forced the session to be lifted due to lack of quorum only to end the choreography. The message had already been transmitted.
Karina, who for some time had been providing a more pragmatic view of the problem over her brother’s more emotional approach, read this whole picture from then on. Only her voice was able to convince the President that it was better to turn the page, even if that meant giving up his narrative that it was all an onslaught by the press and the opposition to condition his power.
The arrival of Diego Santilli at the Chief of Staff, which would be made official today, basically responds to three factors. On one hand, to the skill with which he handled himself since his arrival in the government last October, especially to connect with Karina Milei and advise her on the labyrinths of politics. After a start full of mistrust, he showed two behaviors that were valued: low public profile and alignment with the directives emanating from power. The collaboration he provided along with Ignacio Devitt (who will continue at the Casa Rosada, probably in charge of Interior) was key to articulating with governors and influencing the Senate, where Karina feels less secure than in the Chamber of Deputies, where Martín Menem responds to her without the bucking of Patricia Bullrich.
The other factor that weighed in the interpretation made by the presidential sister was that it did not involve dismantling teams or work dynamics that were functioning. That was the case with Federico Sturzenegger, Horacio Marín, or Carlos Guberman, other names she considered. Sandra Pettovello had already made known her rejection of making that leap, and Pablo Quirno, the clearest alternative to Santilli, according to sources in the government, lost ground when in the Rufus scandal between Santiago Caputo and Menem he showed himself close to the Fuerzas del Cielo.
The last point considered was precisely that Santilli’s appointment did not exacerbate the internal conflict with Caputo, because although he is a man of Karina, he maintains good dialogue with the advisor. In any case, for the strategist, the problem is not the name but the symbolic signal it emits. Some still remember hearing him say that if Santilli reached that position, the Cabinet would be like «a Pro 3.0,» without the original libertarian imprint and more similar to the reviled Juntos por el Cambio. But it is a time for pragmatism.
Para mí Adorni era un blando que no daba la talla, un pancho. Santilli es tibio igual, pero los Milei se dieron cuenta que necesitan un perro faldero. Esto huele a que quieren mano dura, pero se quedan cortos. Viva la libertad carajo, basta de zurdos infiltrados!
para mí se les cayó el muñeco a estos fachos de mierda, Adorni era un títere y Santilli es lo mismo, otra cara del ajuste neoliberal. mientras ellos se pelean los cargos, el pueblo labura cada vez más pobre. esto huele a más hambre, ¡a luchar hasta voltearlos a todos!