President Javier Milei’s party La Libertad Avanza (LLA) suffered a new blow on Wednesday as electoral Judge Alejo Ramos Padilla rejected their request for deputy candidate Diego Santilli to lead the ballot after José Luis Espert dropped out of the race. The ruling means that Karen Reichardt, who was slotted second, will be at the top of the list.

Ramos Padilla ruled that LLA’s request to replace Espert — who is in a firestorm due to ties with an alleged drug trafficker — with the next man in line, Santilli, is “unconstitutional.”

Karen Reichardt — real name Karina Vázquez — will lead the ballot, followed by Santilli and Gladys Humenuk. Milei had already announced he wanted Santilli to replace Espert, and even shared some public appearances with him.

A LLA source confirmed to the Herald that they will appeal the ruling, meaning that the National Electoral Chamber would have to make a final decision. A source from the chamber said there is no deadline for a ruling, but that it would need to happen soon to comply with the schedule and a potential need to reprint ballots with the new leading candidates.

A source from the Interior Ministry told the Herald that reprinting the ballots and distributing them — in case electoral authorities approve the move — would take nine days. This means that authorities have only a week to make a final decision regarding the candidacy and whether the ballots will be reprinted in time for the October 26 election.

This is another blow to an already tumultuous campaign for LLA just 18 days ahead of the national legislative election. In addition to the Espert scandal, in August the ruling party suffered leaked audios suggesting Presidency Secretary Karina had taken bribes from pharmaceutical companies in exchange for state contracts.

LLA did not perform well in the local legislative elections in Buenos Aires province in September, losing to Peronism by 14 points.

The ruling

A 2017 Argentine law requires female and male candidates to be listed alternately on ballots in order to bring more female lawmakers into Congress. While a 2019 decree said that candidates who pull out for any reason should be replaced by someone of the same gender, it does not state what happens when the person who drops out is the first.

In his ruling, Ramos Padilla said that there is “no specific regulation” for a case like this, and that the right path was to “keep the order of the official list untouched.” 

The judge said that putting Santilli first would have an effect “contrary to the one sought” by the law that regulates the alternating order of candidates according to their gender.

As Espert was not the only to resign (two other female party candidates for Buenos Aires province have also dropped out), LLA argued that the new listing would have several consecutive male candidates and that this added to the need to put Santilli first to guarantee an alternating order by gender. Ramos Padilla rejected the argument, saying that improving the position of male candidates due to the “striking” resignations of two women would go against the spirit of the law.