JxC co-founder warns the coalition will break if PRO backs Milei

Unión Cívica Radical’s Ernesto Sanz didn’t pick a side ahead of the Massa-Milei run-off

Opposition coalition Juntos por el Cambio (JxC) will split up if the PRO party decides to support far-right candidate Javier Milei, JxC co-founder and Unión Cívica Radical (UCR) leader Ernesto Sanz warned.

“If the parts [of the coalition] start to decide different things, it’s obvious that it will split up,” Sanz told Urbana Play radio station. “Coalitions live as long as their members want them to; they are not eternal.”

If the parties in the alliance don’t agree on whether to support either candidate or stay neutral, “there are no reasons to walk the same path,” Sanz said.

“Right now, we have more differences than similarities with both candidates. I find as many reasons not to support Milei as I do [not to support] Massa.”

Sanz co-founded JxC with former president and PRO leader Mauricio Macri and Coalición Cívica party founder Elisa “Lilita” Carrió.

The UCR is the oldest party in Argentina and one of the main members of the JxC coalition, along with PRO. In the outgoing Congress, it has 34 of JxC’s 116 deputies and 18 of its 31 senators. The party is set to hold a meeting on Wednesday at 2 p.m. to debate its position ahead of the November 19 run-off between Milei and Sergio Massa (Unión por la Patria, UxP). However, many radicales (UCR members) have already said they do not support Milei.

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PRO was also planning to meet on Wednesday to decide its position on the run-off, but suspended the reunion after Macri and former presidential candidate Patricia Bullrich met on Tuesday night.

Some PRO members have already said they will support Milei in the run-off. Former national deputy Waldo Wolff, as well as Capitán Sarmiento mayor and former Energy Minister Javier Iguacel, said Tuesday that they are backing the LLA candidate in the run-off, before the announcement of the party’s official position.

Although Macri publicly backed Bullrich as a presidential candidate, shortly after the August primaries, Milei said he would give Macri a custom-made country representative role prospecting for new markets abroad if he were to win the presidency.
Coalición Cívica has already said that it will remain neutral ahead of the run-off. “We accept the electoral results, but we will not be voting for any of the options that will compete in the run-off,” the party wrote in a statement . “We are not with Massa nor with Milei.”

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