Buenos Aires Herald 
While police were cracking down on protesting pensioners outside Argentina’s Congress on Wednesday afternoon, tensions inside the legislative building boiled to the point of physical violence.
Deputies Oscar Zago and Lisandro Almirón ended up trading blows, while another threw water at a fellow caucus member and opposition lawmakers got into a heated argument.
Amid the chaos, Lower House head Martín Menem called the session off and was angrily confronted by opposition deputies.
Videos on social media showed Almirón, from ruling coalition La Libertad Avanza (LLA), fighting with Zago, who used to be head of the LLA bloc but split from it last April.
Another video posted by LLA Deputy María Celeste Ponce showed her and Lilia Lemoine, also of LLA, yelling at fellow caucus members Rocío Bonacci and Marcela Pagano. Bonacci was seen throwing water at Ponce from a glass.
The session was called to debate several bills regarding the scandal involving President Javier Milei and the $LIBRA cryptocurrency scam. The agenda included forming a commission to investigate the scandal and request reports from high-ranking public officials.
But trouble arose when deputy Victoria Tolosa Paz, of the Peronist Unión por la Patria (UxP) coalition, motioned to address two new proposals: one to instruct Lower House commissions to debate removing Milei’s legislative powers approved last year as part of the Ley Bases, and another to instruct the impeachment commission to hold a session and confirm its authorities.
In April, Zago had suggested appointing Pagano as the new commission chair, with Milei’s approval. However, a commission meeting in which Pagano was due to assume her role was called off by Menem one minute before starting. Zago proceeded with the meeting anyway, but Menem later dismissed Pagano’s appointment and the role was left vacant.
The clash prompted Zago to split from LLA, although he is still regarded as a government ally.
During Wednesday’s session, Zago, Bonacci, and Pagano remained in their seats after Tolosa Paz proposed debating her two initiatives, while LLA walked out. “Do you want to give them a quorum? We can’t give Kirchnerism a quorum,” Ponce told Bonacci and Pagano while leaving, the three of them trading insults.
In Argentina’s Chamber of Deputies, at least half the members plus one must be present for a session to start. This threshold is known as a quorum. Members can come and go during a session, but the house cannot vote on a bill unless the session has quorum. Parties can avoid bills they oppose from going to a vote by leaving the chamber, meaning the session no longer has quorum.
Almirón burst onto the Lower House floor and told Zago to get out of his seat to avoid giving quorum to the session. The two started fighting and had to be physically separated by other deputies.
“We had the numbers to debate the initiative. Menem saw this and started getting nervous, making up excuses to delay the debate until we no longer had quorum,” said UxP deputy Tomás Ledesma in a video on social media.
He claimed that Menem took advantage of the fight between Zago and Almirón to call the session off, something he described as “a completely anti-democratic move.”
