The Government concedes on disability and land to avoid tensioning relations with its allies over the Budget and the PASO

Gabriel Bornoroni, president of the LLA bloc The ruling party in the Chamber of Deputies has shown, in recent weeks, a receptiveness to the demands of its allies and provincial blocs that it has rarely displayed. The concessions included a promise to restore the limits on the sale of land to foreigners, the reversal of the adjustment in the Disability area, and a first round of conversations about the public works each province will receive under the 2027 Budget. This Thursday, the ruling party convened a plenary session of the Constitutional Affairs and General Legislation committees of the Chamber of Deputies to begin consideration of the Inviolability of Private Property law, which already has half-sanction from the Senate. It will take place on Wednesday the 14th, one day before the special session requested by the opposition, and the libertarians plan to add a chapter on the foreign ownership of land. The intention is to offer an alternative to the deputies of the PRO, the Radical Civic Union (UCR), the Movement for Integration and Development (MID), and the provincial parties, who question the elimination of the limits on the acquisition of fields by foreign capital, although they reject a complete repeal of the mega DNU 70/23. An article of the mega-decree had repealed the Land Law and enabled purchases without restrictions by foreigners, but its application had been suspended by a judicial injunction. However, the issue regained centrality two weeks ago following a decision by the Supreme Court of Justice, which overturned the ruling by the Federal Justice of La Plata that had halted the deregulation. On Wednesday afternoon, during conversations between the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Martín Menem, and the representatives of the dialogue-willing blocs, the request to establish limits once again came up. One of the options with the greatest support is to restore the maximum of 15% of the rural land of each province or municipality in foreign hands. Allied deputies of the ruling party José Luis Garrido (Por Santa Cruz), Eduardo Falcone (MID) and Oscar Zago (MID) That limit was in force before the repeal of the law through DNU 70/23. The ruling party considers that it can incorporate it into the Private Property bill because the chapter concerning land was withdrawn during the consideration of the initiative in the Senate, before the vote on the floor. The discussion still does not have a definitive text. While some allied sectors proposed recovering the previous scheme, others are pushing to set a higher percentage. The Government's strategy is aimed at ensuring that the blocs that usually support La Libertad Avanza have arguments not to contribute to the quorum in the opposition's session (October 15), which needs 129 deputies present to open the floor and, so far, does not have all the necessary votes guaranteed. On the other hand, Menem and the Secretary of the Treasury, Carlos Guberman, also committed on Wednesday to showing the budget allocations that will be destined for the disability sector, and let it be known that they will make other modifications to the text of the committee report to secure the support of the blocs that signed "in dissent" because they still distrusted the Government's real intentions. To unblock this particularly sensitive issue in public opinion, La Libertad Avanza committed to its allies to eliminate the reform of the area that was included in the 2027 Budget bill, and drafted a new bill that takes up much of the Disability Emergency law, such as the single nomenclator for services, its inflation-based updating, the compatibility of the pension with formal or informal employment, and the Single Disability Certificate (CUD) as the pathway to obtaining a pension. Secretary of the Treasury, Carlos Guberman Nevertheless, some demands from the allies still remain pending, such as clear wording that ratifies that the services will be updated monthly for inflation and the payment schedule for the compensation owed; the ruling party plans to bring the issue to the floor on October 21. In the same meeting, the Secretary of the Treasury heard the first demands of the UCR, which called for preserving the funding of the national universities, and of the provincial blocs, which showed particular interest in the works, especially road works, assigned to their districts in the Budget for next year. The works and funds that the provinces will receive will be bargaining chips in a much more important negotiation for the Government: the elimination of the PASO. The political reform, whose main objective is to suspend the primary elections in order to simplify the calendar and hinder the organization of the opposition, needs the support of the governors, mainly those in the north of the country. The provincial leaders are not only closely watching the budget spreadsheets but also the political movements of La Libertad Avanza in their respective districts. While some rule out an electoral alliance with the purple party, they do expect guarantees that the ruling party will not go all out with its own candidates.