Who is Victoria Villarruel, Javier Milei’s running mate?

( Spanish) — Javier Milei said that he was going to confirm the formula of his electoral ballot on June 24, but he went ahead. Thus, he became the first presidential candidate in Argentina to announce his potential vice president for the 2023 elections: the lawyer Victoria Villarruel, who is also a member of the same block as the economist in Congress.

“Her knowledge of security and defense issues is impeccable and few people are equal to her, even in extremely important discussions, so contaminated and dirty in Argentina, such as the discussion of human rights,” said Milei.

Victoria Villarruel, “a brilliant person”, according to Milei.

She is 48 years old and, together with the libertarian economist, is the second member of the block of deputies of La Libertad Avanza, made up solely of them, since 2021.

She is the daughter and granddaughter of military men. Her father, retired lieutenant colonel Eduardo Marcelo Villarruel, who died in 2021, participated in the Operative Independence, launched in 1975 by the government of Isabel Perón to combat a guerrilla focus, and which some organizations considered “the beginning of clandestine repression”. He later participated in the Malvinas War in 1982 and was the second in command of Company 602, commanded by Aldo Rico.

Since 2006, the lawyer has chaired the Center for Legal Studies on Terrorism and its Victims (Celtyv). This association, according to its website, watches over the “innocent victims of the terrorism of the guerrilla organizations” in the seventies.

On countless occasions, he publicly criticized the human rights policies of the last decades by different governments. “Neither Argentina is at the forefront of human rights, nor are the Mothers and Grandmothers white doves.”

In her legislative work, Villarruel is the promoter of the bill that seeks to establish the “National Day of the Victims of Terrorism in Argentina.” She too, she wrote two books about that time: “The other dead, the civilian victims of the guerrilla terrorism of the 70s” and “They call them… young idealists.”

Years ago, during an interview, they asked him specifically about the period of the military dictatorship in Argentina and how he qualified the 1976 coup. This was his answer: “I think the situation at that time was really very difficult, there were many attacks every day , and without justifying this situation, the reality is that the terrorist attacks began to decrease and the population began to be more protected”.

“In Argentina, if you defend certain ideas, you are Satan,” he said in another interview recent.

In 2019, the now pre-candidate for Milei’s vice president shared a conference with leaders of the Spanish far-right party Vox, convened under the title “The challenges of the cultural battle.” After the meeting, Villarruel published a note in a local media outlet, “The lessons from Vox that Argentines can learn”, in which he emphasized “the defense of values ​​and principles” such as “family, freedom, the right to life, private property. In addition, he said that there is “a sector of society that does not have representatives who contradict the increasingly totalitarian politically correct discourse”, something that he attributed to an “artificial story” of Kirchnerism. He also reproached him for the lack of construction of a ” counter-narrative” to macrismo.

She defines herself as “a profound defender of life” and said that she would repeal the law on voluntary interruption of pregnancy: “It has been disastrous for the Argentine Republic.” After Milei’s announcement, a TV host who came out as gay asked her about marriage equality. This is an approximation of that dialogue:

-What do you think of equal marriage?

-For me it was guaranteed with the civil union. I have to be honest with you, legally certain rights were guaranteed. Expand them? Yes, but calling it marriage is an institution that, if you like, has more to do with religion. Apart from that… For me we all have rights before the law.

(…) It seems to me that in the civil union it was fully guaranteed and those things that did not have legal recognition, had to be expanded and that’s it.

-It bothers you that gays can have the same treatment as heterosexuals.

-No.

After Milei’s announcement, Villarruel said that it is not the first time she has been invited to politics: “With Javier we already chose ourselves once, he chose me, but I also chose him.” The lawyer chairs another foundation, Oíd Mortales. One of the slogans that can be read on its Web page is: “Make Argentina great again”.