Patricia Bullrich | |
---|---|
Minister of Security | |
Assumed office 10 December 2023 | |
President | Javier Milei |
Preceded by | Aníbal Fernández |
In office 10 December 2015 – 10 December 2019 | |
President | Mauricio Macri |
Preceded by | María Cecilia Rodríguez |
Succeeded by | Sabina Frederic |
National Deputy | |
In office 10 December 2007 – 10 December 2015 | |
Constituency | City of Buenos Aires |
In office 10 December 1993 – 10 December 1997 | |
Constituency | City of Buenos Aires |
Minister of Social Security | |
In office 31 October 2001 – 13 November 2001 | |
President | Fernando de la Rúa |
Preceded by |
|
Succeeded by | José Gabriel Dumón |
Minister of Labour, Employment and Human Resources | |
In office 6 October 2000 – 29 October 2001 | |
President | Fernando de la Rúa |
Preceded by | Alberto Flamarique |
Succeeded by | José Gabriel Dumón |
Secretary of Criminal Policy and Penitentiary Affairs | |
In office 15 December 1999 – 5 October 2000 | |
President | Fernando de la Rúa |
Preceded by | Julio Enrique Aparicio |
Succeeded by | Mariano Ciafardini |
Personal details | |
Born | Buenos Aires, Argentina | 11 June 1956
Political party |
Justicialist Party (1983–1996) New Leadership (1996–1999) Union for Freedom (2002–2018) Republican Proposal (since 2018) |
Other political affiliations |
Alliance for Work, Justice and Education (1999–2001) Civic Coalition (2007–2011) PRO Union (2013–2015) Juntos por el Cambio (since 2015) |
Spouses | Marcelo Langieri
(
m. 1975;
div. 1982)Guillermo Yanco (
m. 1997) |
Children | 1 |
Alma mater | University of Palermo |
Signature | |
Patricia Bullrich (Latin American Spanish: [paˈtɾisja ˈβulritʃ] ; born 11 June 1956) is an Argentine professor and politician who is serving as Minister of Security since 2023 under president Javier Milei, having previously held the office under president Mauricio Macri from 2015 to 2019. She is the chairwoman of Republican Proposal. [1]
Born in Buenos Aires, Bullrich graduated from the University of Palermo, and as a young woman she was involved with the Peronist Youth. Following the election of Macri to the presidency in the 2015 Argentine general election, it was announced that Bullrich had been nominated the Minister of Security. [2]
Bullrich represented the hardest and most right-wing sector of the Together for Change coalition and the Republican Proposal party during both the 2023 Argentine primary and general elections as presidential candidate. Following her defeat in the first round of the general election, she decided to personally support Javier Milei on the second round. Later on, she was chosen to serve as Minister of Security by Milei after being elected President.
Bullrich was born on 11 June 1956 in Buenos Aires, daughter of Alejandro Bullrich, a cardiologist, and Julieta Luro Pueyrredon. She belongs to two wealthy families on each of her parents' sides. On her mother's side, she belongs to the Pueyrredón family, a traditional lineage of Spanish, French, and Irish descent whose members featured prominently in the early years of Argentine Independence (such as Juan Martín de Pueyrredón and Honorio Pueyrredon). [3] On her father's side, she descends from Adolfo Bullrich, a businessman and politician of German ancestry, who served as Mayor of Buenos Aires from 1898 to 1902. [4] Although it was a wealthy family, Alejandro and Julieta divorced, and Patricia adjusted to a simpler lifestyle when her mother got a job as publicist. [5]
She became politically engaged from an early age, abandoning a potential career in field hockey to dedicate herself fully to political activism. [6] By the time she was 17, she was an active member of the Peronist Youth. She also worked at the Cheburger fast food joint and became a member of the food workers' union, encouraging coworkers to unionise as well. [7]
She is the cousin of Fabiana Cantilo, and introduced her to Argentine Rock. In the TV program "Almorzando con Mirtha Legrand" Cantilo explained that their mothers were siblings, had a frequent relation, and that Bullrich invited her to a concert of the band Pescado Rabioso, led by Luis Alberto Spinetta. This was the first concert that Fabiana Cantilo had attended. [8] Patricia skipped school classes one day to attend the music competition TV program "Si lo sabe cante", where she sang the song "El extraño de pelo largo" of La Joven Guardia. She was defeated in the competition. [5]
Patricia's grandmother, daughter of Honorio Pueyrredon, took her to meet Ricardo Balbín, leader of the Radical Civic Union (UCR). The meeting had the opposite effect than expected, as there was a huge generation gap between them. Rather than make her embrace the ideas of the UCR, she rejected Balbín and chose Peronism instead. [8] She joined the Peronist Youth (JP), the youth wing of the Peronist movement, aged 17. On 20 June 1973, she joined the procession to Ezeiza to bear witness to Juan Perón's return to Argentina following his 18-year exile, but left before the Ezeiza Massacre took place that same day. [9]
She was also present at the Plaza de Mayo on the International Workers' Day of 1974, when Perón, by then once again president of Argentina, expelled the Montoneros and the left-wing youth groups from the celebrations. Bullrich herself was a member of the Montoneros, active in the Columna Norte subgroup commanded by Rodolfo Galimberti. [10] Her nom-de-guerre within the organization was "Cali". [10] Galimberti was Bullrich's brother-in-law, as he was married with Bullrich's sister, Julieta. [11] Bullrich has denied being a Montoneros member, and maintains that she just a member of the JP. [12] [13]
Perón died in 1974 and the Dirty War, the armed conflict between the Montoneros and the military, worsened. In 1975, Bullrich was arrested for spray-painting political messages on the entrance of the University of Buenos Aires Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, and spent six months in prison. Upon being released, she dropped out of her sociology degree at the University of Buenos Aires and enrolled at the Universidad de Belgrano to study law. [7] She also rejoined the Columna Norte. The 1976 coup d'état established a military dictatorship, the National Reorganization Process, that continued the armed conflict against the Montoneros. Montoneros organized an attack on September 4, 1976, that would kill a manager of the Sudamtex textile firm while in his car. Patricia Bullrich had to be on the scene, pretending to be a casual student, but felt that she was being followed and escaped. The military, who had abducted one of the masterminds of the plan, knew about the imminent attack beforehand, which allowed them to surprise the Montoneros and kill the whole unit. [10] In January 1977 Galimberti and Bullrich attached an improvised explosive device to the car of Pepe Noguer, mayor of San Isidro. The device worked, injuring the daughter and the daughter-in-law of the mayor, Ana María Noguer, and Hortensia M. de Noguer. [10]
Patricia Bullrich went into exile in 1977 with her partner Marcelo Langieri, first settling in Brazil, and later in Mexico, Spain and France. [5] She was still a member of Montoneros living abroad, until Galimberti cut ties with the organization in 1979. [10] She returned briefly to Argentina on that year, to give birth to her son Francisco. [5]
Bullrich returned to the country after the 1982 Falklands War. [9] She had conflicts with Dante Gullo over the reorganization of the JP. Peronism lost the 1983 Argentine general election, so she joined the internal faction of Antonio Cafiero that sought to renew the party. Peronism returned to power in 1989 when Carlos Menem won the 1989 Argentine general election. She was elected deputy in 1993, alongside Erman González. [5] She proposed over two hundred bills, including the Art University law, the Cinema law, and the Leasing Contract law. [14] In 1995, she was named the Legislator of the Year. [14]
Patricia Bullrich left the Justicialist Party in 1996 and started New Leadership alongside Gustavo Béliz. She had conflicts with him because she thought that he managed the party unilaterally, without making her part of the decisions. [15] She left the party and, after briefly considering to join the Frepaso, she started another party. Initially named Cambio 97, it was soon renamed "Unión por Todos" as the Cambio 97 name had already been registered. The new party did not get enough votes to allow her to be reelected as deputy in the 1997 Argentine legislative election. Since then she worked for the Buenos Aires Province on security matters, developing a community policing project in Hurlingham. She resigned in 1998, because of conflicts with León Arslanián, minister of justice of the province. [16]
In 1999, the UPT became part of the Alliance for Work, Justice and Education, which took Fernando de la Rúa to the Presidency. Bullrich was appointed to office in the Department of Criminal Policy and Penitentiary Matters. In 2001, she was made a cabinet minister, as Secretary of Labour, Employment and Human Resources and, later that year, as Secretary of Social Security. [14] During the 2001 economic crisis, she led the plan to substantially reduce the pay of state employees and the level of state pensions.[ citation needed]
Following the collapse of the Alliance government of de la Rúa, Bullrich and her colleagues formally launched UPT as a political party on 6 March 2002. [17] The following year, the Party participated in the elections for Buenos Aires City, with Bullrich as the candidate for Head of Government for the Alianza Unión para Recrear Buenos Aires, working with the Recrear movement of Ricardo López Murphy. They came fourth with almost 10% of the vote.[ citation needed]
In 2007, Bullrich led UPT into the Civic Coalition (2007–2011) alongside various opposition groups and social movements, principally ARI led by Elisa Carrió. The Coalition won several seats in the upper and lower houses of Congress and Bullrich herself was elected as National Deputy for Buenos Aires. Her centrist politics and polemical history as a government minister, however, contributed to the disenchantment of a group of left-wing members of ARI who left the Civic Coalition.[ citation needed]
Following the election of Mauricio Macri to the presidency on 22 November 2015, it was announced on 25 November 2015 that Bullrich had been nominated the Minister of Security of the Nation. [2]
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), Bullrich was implicated in the D'Alessio scandal, in which Marcelo D'Alessio was accused of extorting various individuals, using real evidence obtained through hidden cameras or otherwise obtained from their private lives, and/or planted evidence, in order to "force people to confess to crimes or implicate others". According to HRW, "intercepted communications suggest that Patricia Bullrich, the security minister, 'had links' and 'gave instructions' to D’Alessio." [18]
In the 2023 Argentine general election, she ran for president as the head of the liberal Juntos por el Cambio alliance and came third in the first round, losing to Sergio Massa and Javier Milei. On 25 October 2023, Bullrich officially endorsed Javier Milei for the runoff election. [19]
In December 2023, Patricia Bullrich returned to government as security minister in president Javier Milei's Cabinet. [20]
Patricia Bullrich, gradually shifted to authoritarian, anti-populist, far-right positions. [a] Including right-wing populist ideals, [34] [35] [36] liberal and even ultra-liberal [37] economic thoughts, and hard-line conservative ideas on cultural matters. [38] [39]
First, Patricia Bullrich was a member of Peronist guerrillas in her youth, and became critical of them as an adult. She described the ideas held by those organizations as an improvised blend of nationalism, Christianity and socialism. She explained that back then she thought that she was taking part in a revolution and that the people would eventually get used to it, but eventually realized that revolutions rarely have a positive outcome. She also thinks that she deluded herself by thinking that Peronism had goals that were not its actual goals. She started to have doubts over her allegiance to the guerrillas when she found out that Montoneros had killed the priest Carlos Mugica, and the aide of Perón José Ignacio Rucci. She realized that Montoneros and the People's Revolutionary Army killed people, even if they not said so openly, and that she was helping that even if from a passive role. [13]
In relation to the severity of law enforcement, she supports a hardline policy against crime, rejecting the policies of Kirchnerism that grant too many rights to criminals and place rigid controls and obstacles on police work. Although those policies are largely a reaction against the policies of the military dictatorship, Bullrich says that "Argentina must leave the past and look to the future". [13] In particular, she had conflicting views with Sabina Frederic, minister of security of Alberto Fernández, over the use of taser guns, as Frederic restricted the police of the Argentine Federal Police from using either those or regular guns. [40] When she was appointed minister of security by Javier Milei, she said "True change is possible if the law is applied in every corner of the country, equally for everyone and without privileges. Argentina needs order. We will be relentless against crime and we will wage a relentless fight against drug trafficking. It's simple: whoever does something, pays for it". [9]
Patricia Bullrich supported abortion during the debate in 2018 for a bill that would make it legal. She said that it did not make sense that only the woman could go to jail for it. [41] However, she also supported a clause for conscientious objection to abortion from medics that may refuse to do it, and to set a minium age higher than in the proposed bill. [42] The bill was not approved, and was proposed again in 2020. That time, Bullrich refused to comment her personal opinion on abortion, and considered instead that the country had more pressing economic and societal priorities. [43] For similar reasons, she did not agree with the proposal of Javier Milei to celebrate a referendum to abolish the bill approved in 2020: she said that it would halt the whole country for a couple of months, and that the priority was to solve the economic crisis. [44]
Election | Office | List | Votes | Result | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | % | P. | ||||||
2003 | Chief of Government of Buenos Aires | Union to Recreate Buenos Aires | 171,765 | 9.76 | 4th | Not elected | [45] | |
2023 | President of Argentina | Juntos por el Cambio | 6,379,023 | 23.81 | 3rd | Not elected | [46] |
Election | Office | List | # | District | Votes | Result | Ref. | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | % | P. | ||||||||
1993 | National Deputy | Justicialist Party | 3 | CABA | 628,506 | 32.59% | 1st [b] | Elected | [47] | |
2007 | Civic Coalition | 1 | CABA | 279,775 | 15.29% | 1st [b] | Elected | [48] | ||
2011 | Civic Coalition | 1 | CABA | 124,245 | 6.61% | 5th [b] | Elected | [49] |