Victoria Villarruel with an Argentine flag and Javier Meloni celebrate the results of the presidential elections in their country.MATIAS BAGLIETTO (Portal)
As soon as the results of the Argentine elections were announced last Sunday, the Madrid Forum, the platform for the landing in Latin America launched by Vox, congratulated the winner Javier Milei, but did not forget to also mention his number two, the vice president – elect, Victoria Villarruel. Former Vox general secretary Javier Ortega Smith was even more effusive: “Congratulations, friend Vicky Villarruel,” he wrote on his account on the social network, while her campaign partner is an old acquaintance with whom they share battles and ideas.
The relationship between Vox and the vice president-elect dates back to 2019. In August of that year, Ortega Smith, whose mother was Argentine, attended an event at the Círculo Militar de Buenos Aires with the current vice president-elect, where both defended the need to give the left “the cultural fight.” Villarruel, daughter, niece and granddaughter of soldiers, was then heading the Center for Legal Studies on Terrorism and its Victims (CELTYV), an organization created to oppose the trials for crimes against humanity that put the coup plot groups in the dock brought. They ruled the It was about glossing over the oppression of the dictatorship and portraying it as a war against the Montoneros and other guerrilla groups in which uniformed men could commit “excesses”. “They,” Villarruel wrote, referring to Vox in an article glossing over his conference with Ortega Smith, “will not take responsibility for a civil war that has taken place.” [en España] 80 years ago or by a de facto government that ended more than 40 years ago and which did not include any of its leaders or members. The same applies to us here, the monopoly on pain does not belong to the left and neither does innocence.” The term de facto government is always used for dictatorships, be it under Franco or Videla.
At that time, La Libertad Avanza, the party with which Milei came to the Casa Rosada, did not even exist, but Villarruel was already invited to the conclusion of the ultra-Spanish party’s election campaign in April 2019, when Vox was dissolved Extra-parliamentary entry into Congress with 24 MPs. The then young Argentine politician took good note of Santiago Abascal’s rhetoric and, at the end of the 2021 election campaign in Parque Lezama in Buenos Aires, repeated sentences that he had adopted from his argument: “To those who call me a genocider, a fascist, a Calling them racists.” As a denier, I tell you that I take all of this with a smile. We don’t have to ask for permission or forgiveness for the way we think.”
👏🇦🇷 Congratulations to the Argentine people for eliminating Peronism and regaining freedom!
Congratulations friend, @VickyVillaruel!
You will be the best vice president Argentina has ever had and guarantee the country’s security. pic.twitter.com/7jtPDhynn9
— Javier Ortega Smith (@Ortega_Smith) November 19, 2023
Sources close to Vox admit that Milei probably would not have been welcomed with open arms if he had not come from Villarruel’s hand. La Gaceta, the organ of dissent, the foundation headed by Abascal, describes the new Argentine president as “libertarian,” an adjective that hardly corresponds to the ideology of his Spanish counterpart. Proposals such as dollarizing the economy, closing the central bank or the free sale of organs are indigestible for the conservative Vox electorate. On the other hand, Villarruel is an activist of the ultra-Catholic right: she took part in the Mass for Life celebrated in 2018 in the Basilica of the Virgin of Luján, in defiance of the abortion law, while the Argentine Congress was debating its legalization; He opposes same-sex marriage and attends pre-conciliar masses in Latin, which the Vatican denies. Villarruel’s influence on his boss is evident in the fact that he began to question the number of 30,000 missing people in Argentina, which led to the scandal of human rights organizations.
In October 2021, Milei intervened via videoconference at the macro party of the Abascal party and the following year he repeated in person, accompanied by Villarruel, delighting the audience with a speech in which he advocated a return to jungle law Social Darwinism for the benefit of the richest . By then it had already been blessed by the American alt-right led by former President Donald Trump, with Jair Bolsonaro being the main reference point in South America.
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Vox took part in Milei’s presidential campaign, sending a delegation led by MEP Hermann Tertsch to Buenos Aires to “monitor” the election results, the cleanliness of which his ally questioned until they started smiling at him. Milei’s stunning victory was a morale boost for the Spanish far right, which has seen its partners in Chile, Colombia and Brazil lose in the last two years and the demonized Sao Paulo Forum spread its tentacles across the region. Europe experienced a Scottish shudder: the euphoria triggered by the Italian Giorgia Meloni coming to power was followed by the cold water of the loss of Poland, the fiefdom of the ultra-Catholics of law and justice.
While Vox welcomed the victory of the Milei-Villaruel duo with joy, the PP received it coldly, even though former President Mariano Rajoy had asked for the vote for them. “What can I say?” replied party spokesman Borja Sémper. “We respect the decisions of other countries. We understand that the situation in Argentina is so critical… The good news is that Argentines have left Peronism behind them. We will see if the decision they have made brings them an improvement,” he added.
The State Department, for its part, issued a diplomatic statement avoiding mention of Milei. “Following the presidential elections in which Argentines expressed themselves democratically, Spain will continue to promote relations with Argentina for the benefit of the well-being and prosperity of our people.” […] We wish Argentina every success in this new phase,” he said. Not a single word of congratulations to the winner.
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