mportant and weighty issues are being debated across Latin America today, such as how to prevent a slide into narcotrafficking-related lawlessness and how to modernize public educational systems critical to future employment and productivity growth. Many bold leaders promising radical reforms have been elected around the region with a spectrum of ideological differences. But there is one curious feature many have in common from Argentina to Costa Rica: troublesome vice presidents.
President Javier Milei was elected in a landslide in 2023 by pledging to take a chainsaw to Argentina’s chronic budget deficits and burdensome rules and regulations. Given very limited representation in Congress and no governorships in his column, it has been a deeply challenging promise to fulfill, though the upcoming midterm legislative elections might improve matters. Milei has recently reached for a vital financial and political lifeline from President Donald Trump in Washington, and both have excoriated the Argentine opposition for trying to thwart badly needed structural reforms. Yet, Milei has often reserved his harshest insults for his own deputy, Vice President Victoria Villarruel, calling her a “traitor” given her ineffectual management of legislative priorities as President of the Senate. Both have since traded insults and become political enemies.
While Argentina’s constitution doesn’t give Milei the option of removing his vice president should he want to, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s nasty conflict with his elected vice president Veronica Abad led to her dismissal last March. They had a falling out after their inauguration, she was appointed ambassador to Israel, and when the time approached for her to return and assume the vice presidency while Noboa ran for reelection, as constitutionally mandated, he suspended Abad from her post and appointed interim replacements. He won reelection this past April with a new running mate, María José Pinto.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member