The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, asked the Minister of Infrastructure, Guillermo Ferraro, to resign this Thursday, according to the press of the South American country and confirmed hours later.
After the resignation, President Javier Milei is considering lowering that portfolio to Secretariat and including it in the Ministry of Economy, led by Luis Caputo, one of the strongest men in the cabinet today.
According to the Argentine press late on Thursday, the president had asked Ferraro to leave the Government after, allegedly, leaking sensitive information from cabinet meetings.
Other versions speak, however, that the underlying reason would be a bad relationship between the official and Nicolás Posse, chief of staff and the person closest to Milei in the current Executive along with his sister, Karina Milei, general secretary of Presidency.
At this time on Friday, the Executive still does not give an official version, surely waiting for the appearance that the presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, offers daily at the Casa Rosada (seat of Government).
However, Milei – very active on social networks – last night “liked” a publication made on an account belonging to La Libertad Avanza, a far-right group led by the economist, that of Osvaldo ‘Beto’ Mendeleev, when he I was waiting for some official statement about the ‘Ferraro case’.
“Attention. The Ministry of Infrastructure will cease to exist and will become a Secretariat under the orbit of Toto (nickname of Luis) Caputo, super Minister of Economy. Good decision. There is no money” was the text of said message.
Subsequently, two other accounts also related to the ultraliberal’s digital communication referred to this degradation of the Ministry of Infrastructure.
While waiting for the Executive to rule, the truth is that the Infrastructure portfolio currently has important Secretariats: Transportation, Public Works, Mining and Communications.
Of them, Public Works is one of the most controversial, since, both during the campaign and later as President, Milei warned that he will reduce them to a minimum and seek to finance them from private capital.
The background to this crisis, which opened only 46 days after the Government took office on December 10, is the difficulty that Milei is encountering in finding sufficient support to advance the parliamentary process of its star project: the Bases and Starting Points for the Freedom of Argentines, known as ‘omnibus law’.
The day before, some words from the president, spoken at the ministerial meeting, emerged and would be the origin of Ferraro’s dismissal, for having leaked them outside the cabinet: “I’m going to leave them penniless, I’m going to melt them all down.”
With these phrases he alluded to the governors of the provinces, ratifying what the Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, said the day before on social networks.
“The zero deficit is not negotiated,” Caputo stated in his X account, where he warned that “if all the economic measures proposed” in the bill are not approved, “the adjustment will be greater, fundamentally for the provinces,” although At the same time he clarified that “it is not a threat.”
