Cristina and Macri agreed to reject Lijo and García-Mansilla's nominations

In a session marked by tensions, cross accusations, and a suspicious consensus among historical enemies, the Senate of the Nation rejected the Executive's proposals to fill vacancies in the Supreme Court of Justice.

The names in question:  the prestigious academic Manuel García-Mansilla and the federal judge Ariel Lijo. Both, promoted by Javier Milei's government, saw their appointments thwarted by the tactical alliance between Kirchnerism and PRO, which constitutes a clear act of institutional obstruction to the change project led by the President.

The vote was decisive, but not for legal reasons, rather political: García-Mansilla received 51 votes against and only 20 in favor, while Lijo gathered 43 rejections, 27 supports, and one abstention.

In both cases, the numbers were built with the complicity of sectors that, although they claim to confront each other in discourse, demonstrate in practice that they share the same agenda of systematic blocking of libertarian reformism.

García-Mansilla, appointed by decree and already sworn in "on commission," is now at the center of a debate about his permanence. The Casa Rosada reiterated that his appointment is valid until the end of the legislature in November, by virtue of the powers conferred to the Executive.

Additionally, the Kirchnerist bloc and the PRO sector aligned to reject the Clean Record Law project promoted by Milei's Government, which seeks to prevent people with convictions for crimes against the administration from being candidates and holding public office.

The regulation proposed by La Libertad Avanza represented a decisive step; its approval would have automatically left figures like Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, convicted in the Vialidad case and with a sentence confirmed by Cassation, out of the electoral game.

Regarding the nominations, the opposition—with special prominence of Macrism and Kirchnerism—not only disregards this right but also denounces an alleged  "usurpation of office", an accusation without legal basis that exhibits the level of political desperation of those who see their power quotas in the Judiciary endangered.

Paradoxically, during the public hearing on August 28, García-Mansilla himself had said he would not accept an appointment by decree, but he did so upon confirming the  anticipated blocking that was being forged in the Senate.

A gesture of institutional responsibility that was interpreted maliciously by the same ones who, for decades, appointed and removed judges "at will" from the power basements.

The necessary quorum (37 senators) was reached thanks to 32 members of the Frente de Todos, joined by the radicals Pablo Blanco (Tierra del Fuego) and Martín Lousteau (CABA); the Macrists Alfredo De Ángeli and Victoria Huala; and Francisco Paoltroni, now aligned with the old politics. The absence of several senators from PRO and UCR was noticeable and functional to the objective of undermining the official initiative.

The session was presided over by the officialist Bartolomé Abdala, who maintained the institutional framework despite provocations. However, the most strident voices were the opposition's: Guadalupe Tagliaferri, a pawn of Rodríguez Larreta and head of the Agreements Commission, repeated arguments of  gender quota and "constitutionality" to oppose the candidates, while the radical Lousteau went so far as to describe his vote as "the easiest of his career," showing the lightness with which certain sectors treat essential decisions for the country.

The Pampean Pablo Bensusán and the Mendoza native Anabel Fernández Sagasti, part of the hardest wing of Kirchnerism, did not refrain from launching darts against the Executive. Sagasti, even, tried to link the presidential decree with a supposed "economic instability", in an argumentative pirouette that can only be sustained from her mediocre ideology.

José Mayans, head of the Kirchnerist bloc and faithful executor of Gildo Insfrán's orders, went even further: he accused García-Mansilla of "usurping the office" and demanded his immediate resignation. He spared no criticism of the Court for having sworn him in, which he labeled as "servile." His words crudely expose the resentment of a political class that no longer controls the Judicial Power as in the recent past.