Diego Santilli, the Peronist Who Became a Macrista and Is Now Milei's New Chief of Cabinet

Diego Santilli, a multifaceted leader who went from the PJ to Macrismo and rose quickly with the Mileis, will leave the Ministry of Interior to replace Manuel Adorni as Chief of Cabinet. The announcement came amid suspicions of illicit enrichment surrounding the outgoing official, who also admitted to being a tax evader.

A soccer fanatic and River Plate supporter, passionate about motorsports, Santilli is above all a man of the «political machinery» or, in President Javier Milei’s terms, an exponent of the «caste.» Perhaps that is why the libertarians had relegated him to third place on the violet list, a snub he silently brooded over. But, as he often says – now with more emphasis – politics often offers a rematch, sometimes unexpectedly.

Now, after an intense stint as Minister of Interior, a position he assumed last November, Santilli takes on a new challenge alongside Milei. The Chief of Cabinet role is seen as a step toward his goal of becoming a candidate for governor of Buenos Aires in 2027. In that race, he competes with Sebastián Pareja, the libertarian deputy trusted by Karina Milei, who served as the organizer of La Libertad Avanza in the province.

Santilli managed to establish a close relationship with the President’s sister, the most influential official in the government, and her right-hand man, Eduardo «Lule» Menem. His affinity with Karina Milei was a determining factor in his rise within the libertarian structure. Finally, Milei chose him today as Adorni’s successor, despite considering other options such as Chancellor Pablo Quirno and Minister of Human Capital Sandra Pettovello.

After offering Milei the victory in Buenos Aires in the last national elections, Santilli gained ground in the LLA circle. Last November, before he was sworn in again as a deputy, the President appointed him Minister of Interior, replacing Lisandro Catalán, who fell from grace after Guillermo Francos’s resignation. He took on the role of interlocutor with governors and their legislators, aiming to build consensus, and with Adorni’s waning influence, he absorbed tasks corresponding to the Chief of Cabinet. For example, he intervened in budget and political negotiations with university rectors to seal an agreement amid the judicial tug-of-war over the funding law.

Santilli assumed the leading role in the Buenos Aires campaign last year after the spiral of accusations against José Luis Espert. True to his Peronist genes, Santilli teaches that one must quickly turn the page. And so he did: he jumped into the campaign and unexpectedly became the face of La Libertad Avanza’s triumph.

Santilli entered the big leagues of politics very young, thanks to his father Hugo Santilli, then president of the Club Atlético River Plate. The elder Santilli belonged to the then-small group of Buenos Aires PJ leaders who supported Carlos Menem’s presidential candidacy; in fact, he lent the River Plate stadium facilities for the closing of his campaign. In reward for his generosity, Menem appointed him president of the Banco Nación, and the «Colo,» a newly graduated public accountant from the University of Buenos Aires, landed in the mid-1990s at the Directorate of Migration, headed by Hugo Franco.

«That’s where he learned everything about politics. The good and the bad,» recall those who knew him at the time. By then, he had returned from Washington, where he had studied a specialization in finance, and was active in the Peronist Youth with his still political partner: Cristian Ritondo. Both had Miguel Ángel Toma as their godfather, then a national deputy and later Secretary of Interior Security under Menem.

«From that moment we began to walk together,» Ritondo recalls. Those were the golden days of Menemism. It was then that he met his first wife, journalist Nancy Pazos, who bolstered his political career; with her he had three children, Teo, Nicky, and Tonio.

Toward the end of Menem’s government, Santilli migrated to the ranks of Ramón «Palito» Ortega, who had left the governorship of Tucumán to fight the presidential battle in 1999 with Menem’s backing. It was then that the «Colo» met Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, who was active with Palito and at the time directed the Grupo Sophia, a public policy think tank.

Although Ortega’s political career was frustrated by the Alliance’s victory, both Santilli and Larreta would later meet again in the leadership of the Social Welfare Institute of Buenos Aires, both appointed by then-Governor Carlos Ruckauf. Santilli arrived there through Gustavo Beliz, a trusted man of former President Alberto Fernández.

Santilli and Fernández were part of the list that in 2000 ran former Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo as candidate for head of the Buenos Aires city government and Gustavo Beliz as deputy. Alberto Fernández was number 11 and Santilli number 26. Those were difficult times. At the end of 2001, De la Rúa called Cavallo as Economy Minister, but the crisis caused his government to collapse, and Eduardo Duhalde assumed the presidency as interim. In 2003, the Ritondo-Santilli duo accompanied Daniel Scioli as candidate for head of the Buenos Aires city government, but the rising Néstor Kirchner, at Duhalde’s urging, left them orphaned by appointing the former powerboat racer as his presidential running mate.

Scioli’s capitulation plunged the Buenos Aires PJ into a crisis. One sector was co-opted by Kirchner, who promoted Aníbal Ibarra as head of the city government, while another sector headed toward a new space emerging on the Buenos Aires horizon: Compromiso por el Cambio. Through Juan Pablo Schiavi, Ritondo and Santilli entered this new space, and although the Macri-Rodríguez Larreta ticket lost to Ibarra, they bet on giving it continuity and political muscle. It did not go badly for them at all: in 2007 came the victory in the city, and Santilli would hold a series of positions: he was first vice president of the Legislature and then Minister of Environment and Public Space. Later he would jump to Congress as a national senator until 2015, when he reached the pinnacle of his career as deputy head of the city government alongside Larreta.

Determined not to play a decorative role, three years later Santilli accepted to lead the most challenging ministry in the cabinet: Security and Justice. He sensed that this performance would catapult him as a candidate for head of the Buenos Aires city government in 2019, but no: that year Rodríguez Larreta announced they would repeat the ticket in search of reelection. It was the worst news for the «Colo’s» ambitions, but he accepted. In 2021, Larreta would impose another challenge: to face Kirchnerism as a candidate for national deputy, but for Buenos Aires province. The then-head of the city government was preparing to don the presidential sash and wanted his friend positioned in the country’s main district to compete as a candidate for governor. The «Colo» offered him victory, and crowned with glory, they went all out in 2023. However, the eclipse of Juntos por el Cambio swallowed them up: both ended up with nothing.

Now, Santilli rises again from the ashes. His new role as Chief of Cabinet positions him as a key player on the political chessboard, while rumors about his possible candidacy for governor of Buenos Aires do not cease. The question is whether this time the «Colo» can stay at the top or whether, as so often, the political pendulum will leave him on the sidelines again.

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