Javier Milei has once again found a wall in the Argentine Congress. This Wednesday, the opposition in the House of Representatives defeated with a large majority of votes a decree with his signature that increased by 100,000 million pesos (about 100 million dollars at the official exchange rate) the money destined for the State Intelligence Secretariat (SIDE). The vote, which must be endorsed by the Senate for the final annulment of the decree, is a huge blow for the far-right government, which in the midst of the “largest fiscal adjustment in the history of humanity”, as Milei celebrates, has allocated extraordinary amounts of funds to security. The rejection also shows the cracks that the parliamentary alliance between Milei and former president Mauricio Macri (2025-2019) already exhibits. Tired of the ultra not opening spaces in the Administration, Macri has begun to distance himself. His deputies voted against the decree together with the Peronist opposition and were key to providing the necessary quorum for the start of the parliamentary session.
The opposition had already given Milei a warning. On Tuesday, it appointed one of its own to head the congressional commission that must control the spending of the intelligence services. On Wednesday, it found itself united again.
Intelligence services have received special attention since the beginning of Milei’s administration. In his ideal model of government there is a minimal State that ignores its obligations in education, health and social assistance and concentrates all its efforts on internal security and Defense. In addition to denying the atrocities of the last dictatorship, the president has invested part of the budget in weapons and salary increases in the Armed Forces. On July 16, he moved on the Federal Intelligence Agency (AFI), a legacy of the governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner. Milei dissolved the AFI and replaced it with a structure of four offices that answer directly to the president and is called SIDE (State Intelligence Secretariat), the name that the secret services founded in 1946 had until 2015. The argument of the Casa Rosada was that the AFI was “used for spurious activities such as internal espionage, influence peddling and political and ideological persecution.” At the same time, another decree granted the new SIDE an extraordinary amount of 100 million dollars for “reserved expenses”, that is, money that can be used without accountability.
The opposition has seen in the new SIDE an advance of the State over the internal control structures. The agency has a long history of spying against politicians, activists and journalists. And it proved especially inefficient when it had to prevent two terrorist attacks: in 1992 against the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires and two years later when a car bomb blew up the headquarters of the Jewish mutual AMIA. The increase by decree (DNU) of the funds destined for reserved expenses only increased suspicions in this regard. Behind the intelligence structure there is also an opaque character, Santiago Caputo, a 38-year-old official who has no position but acts as a star advisor to Milei and his “cultural war” against everything they consider “political caste.”
Wednesday’s session was on the verge of falling due to a lack of quorum. Macri’s decision to ask his deputies, aligned under the Pro acronym, to go down to the chamber and vote against was key. The final result was 156 votes in favor of the repeal and only 52 against. The Pro votes were joined by Peronism, both in its conservative and Kirchnerist version, and those of the left. The Pro secretary who answers to Macri published a statement after the session in which he explains why he has decided to distance himself from Milei in this case. “Since the beginning of this administration, we have supported the Government in all the measures that supported change in Argentina (the Law of Bases, the expansion of genetic data for security and more). But this DNU of 100 billion pesos for Intelligence, in a context in which ‘there is no money’, and without clarifying the use of the funds, is not the change,” they questioned.
The answer did not come from Milei, but from her Minister of Security, Patricia Bullrich. The official was a presidential candidate for the Pro, but after the defeat she broke with Macri – although not with his party – and embraced the cause of the extreme right without nuances. “The DNU of funds for the SIDE is to take care of the Argentines. The deputies who voted with Kirchnerism to reject it, chose to side with the mafias, drug dealers and terrorism. Now they must take responsibility!” she wrote, in a message also addressed to the deputies of her party who are not aligned with the Casa Rosada.
Drug threats, narcoterrorism in Rosario, threats to the President of the Nation, a country that suffered two attacks… and a dismantled SIDE.
The DNU of funds for the SIDE is to take care of the Argentines. The deputies who voted with Kirchnerism to reject it, elected…
— Patricia Bullrich (@PatoBullrich) August 21, 2024
The result has symbolic value, but not much practical value. The Senate still needs to reject the decree so that its annulment becomes definitive, something that has never happened since the return to democracy in 1983. Milei noted that Peronism has the necessary senators to make history and has already reacted accordingly: during the last three weeks, the SIDE has used 80% of the 100 million dollars it received.
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