Milei Stalls Bid to Suspend Argentina's Open Primaries

Argentina’s Senate has shelved a bill to suspend the country’s compulsory national primaries, known as PASO, after President Javier Milei’s government decided it won’t reconvene the relevant committee until it has enough votes to win. On October 18, 2026, the government dropped plans to secure a committee opinion and hold a floor vote in the last week of October. Its own sources put it bluntly to TN: “Until there is a closed agreement we are not going to convene.”

The numbers explain the retreat. La Libertad Avanza holds 21 of the Senate’s 72 seats. Changing electoral rules takes 37 votes. That leaves the ruling party 16 short, even if the 13 seats held by the Radical Civic Union (UCR) and the PRO, the party of former president Mauricio Macri, both fall in line. They haven’t committed.

Who Decides the Rules

The proposal would suspend the primaries ahead of the 2027 presidential election and add a box to the single paper ballot, letting voters choose an entire party list with one mark. The original bill went further: it proposed abolishing the primaries permanently. Perfil quoted libertarian sources in September saying, “we will not get to eliminating the PASO, we will seek to suspend them.” Suspension keeps the system in law, but removes, for the next presidential cycle, the mechanism that lets voters choose among candidates before the general election.

The government has also discussed allowing national and provincial parties to form different alliances in each province. Cabinet Chief Diego Santilli has been speaking with governors who say they’d back suspension, though their senators’ individual commitments remain uncertain.

Santilli defends the change on cost. He said the primaries run about US$200 million and could require voters in some provinces to vote five or six times a year. In an interview published by Infobae on October 18, he told broadcaster LN+ that “the electoral reform will happen,” while admitting the ruling party had no guaranteed votes.

A Stalled Process and Mixed Signals

The Senate Constitutional Affairs Committee last considered the reform on September 15, 34 days before today, after a pause that began May 13. It ended without an opinion. Committee chairman Agustín Coto, a ruling-party senator, adjourned without setting a date to resume. A political-table meeting at Casa Rosada on October 13 produced nothing to move a new date forward. Neither the Senate nor Casa Rosada has announced one publicly.

Accounts of the vote count conflict. Perfil reported on October 16 that the Speaker’s office considered the lower-house votes secured and that Santilli thought only a few Senate votes were missing. The same report said ruling-party Senate leader Patricia Bullrich confirmed the Senate backing wasn’t there yet. La Nación’s October 18 count treated the ruling bloc’s 21 senators plus three provincial senators as firm: Julieta Corroza of Neuquén, and Natalia Gadano and José María Carambia of Santa Cruz. Several Radicals, the PRO bloc and senators tied to the governor of Tucumán remained uncommitted.

Opposition lawmakers suggested the delay is political and internal. That’s their reading, not an established fact. Perfil described a split inside the government: the Menem brothers favor a harder line with allies, while Santilli, Bullrich and the Caputo team want agreements sooner. TN said deals with allies for 2027 would likely settle toward the end of the year.

Competing Deadlines

The reform is also competing for floor time with the 2027 budget. Budget Committee chairman and ruling-party deputy Alberto Benegas Lynch said on October 13 that the ruling party aims for a committee opinion on October 28 and a floor vote on November 18, according to Noticias Argentinas and Perfil. TN said the government increasingly expects ordinary sessions to stretch into December. Perfil reported that House Speaker Martín Menem’s circle hopes the lower house can approve the reform by November 20 and doesn’t want to leave it to extraordinary sessions. It also reported in September that Casa Rosada had considered deciding the issue in early 2027.

The National Electoral Chamber, which oversees elections, asked in September that any change pass before the end of 2026. Bullrich backed that request at the time. Under current law, Congress must pass a change for the primaries to end.

What the sources don’t establish is telling. They don’t say how many of the 16 missing votes are close to secured, whether governors will demand concessions, or whether the government will settle for suspending the PASO only for 2027 or keep pushing for abolition.

Why This Matters: Primaries are one of the few tools that let ordinary voters, not party leaders, shape who appears on the general-election ballot. Suspending them for 2027 would shift that choice toward negotiations among party insiders and governors, the very talks now dragging on behind closed doors. The government’s stated reason is a US$200 million price tag, a real public cost, but the trade-off is less voter say in candidate selection. The electoral authority’s request for a decision before the end of 2026 shows how little time remains for rules that will govern a presidential race. And the government’s own admission that it won’t convene a committee until votes are “closed” means the terms may be settled before the public gets a full hearing. Watch whether any deal arrives with open debate or only with side agreements.