by Facundo Iglesia and Valen Iricibar

A voting assembly in Argentina’s Republican Proposal Party (PRO) became a shouting match on Thursday between supporters of two of its former leaders: Security Minister Patricia Bullrich and former president Mauricio Macri. Questions about the continued existence of the PRO were underscored as Bullrich supporters stormed off and a candidate favored by Macri was elected to lead the party.

Bullrich, a high-ranking official in Javier Milei’s administration, is pushing for an alliance between the right-wing PRO party and the ruling coalition, far-right La Libertad Avanza (LLA). Meanwhile, Macri wants to maintain the PRO as a separate entity.

Thursday’s assembly was supposed to designate the party’s authorities. According to Damián Arabia, a vice president of the PRO and a national deputy in Bullrich’s faction, there was a previous agreement stipulating that the council’s presidencies should have gone to Bullrich and Macri’s representatives, respectively. However, Macri’s sector named Martín Yeza for the seat earmarked for Bullrich and several shouted down the minister’s supporters, insisting on holding a vote. They stormed out of the assembly in response.

“Some opportunists want to take advantage of the situation and broke the deal,” Arabia said at the doors of the Abasto Hotel in Buenos Aires City, where the meeting was taking place. “They will remain with a small party,” said Pablo Walter, a former senator who also backs Bullrich. “A party of friends, a party of losers.”

“The debate I want to have within the PRO isn’t about appointments, it’s much deeper: it’s a debate about our direction. We will not retreat,” said Bullrich in a written statement on X on Thursday morning. “Today I want to infect the PRO with the courage required to start its engines and go full speed ahead. We can’t do things half-heartedly again.” The statement was replicated by an X account called PRO Libertad. The Herald asked a spokesperson for Bullrich whether that was a new political group endorsed by the Security Minister, but received no immediate answer.

Conversely, the PRO posted on X that they would support Milei’s government, but clarified that it would “not merge with other parties.”

The PRO party was the backbone of the Juntos por el Cambio coalition alongside the Unión Cívica Radical and other smaller parties. It was the ruling coalition under Macri’s 2015-2019 presidency —during which Bullrich also served as Security Minister — and the main opposition bloc during Alberto Fernández’s administration government. 

The alliance was no stranger to political infighting but crumbled during last year’s elections after Bullrich lost her presidential bid to Milei and disagreements about whether to back him in the presidential run-off ensued. Bullrich herself promptly began supporting Milei, appearing at the closing rally of his campaign in Córdoba and joint televised interviews before becoming Security Minister. 

As early as April, a high-ranking PRO leader from Bullrich’s faction told the Herald that the party was “on the brink of extinction” as LLA overtook its agenda and voters. Milei incorporated former members of Macri’s administration and part of Bullrich’s inner circle into his cabinet. For example, the president’s two flagship initiatives — his mega-decree and the Ley Bases — were originally written for a potential Bullrich administration by economist Federico Sturzenegger, who is allegedly set to have his own ministry in Milei’s administration.

Meanwhile, former Buenos Aires City mayor and presidential candidate Horacio Rodríguez Larreta decided to step down from the party’s leadership. A source close to the former PRO strongman said that Larreta “does not agree with handing over the PRO to Milei.”

“Today’s episodes seemed to be a competition between those wanting to merge outright and those wanting to negotiate with LLA,” the source added. “The fight to see who wields the power to negotiate with the government seems like a total embarrassment to him. He thinks that it looks like the PRO has learned nothing.”