BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentine President Alberto Fernandez on Tuesday said he would seek to impeach the head of the Supreme Court, after the two powers recently clashed over a court decision to award more state funds to the city of Buenos Aires.
Fernandez said in a statement that he had signed, along with various provincial governors, a request for the impeachment of Supreme Court President Horacio Rosatti as well as other members of the top court, escalating a fight with the judiciary.
However, an impeachment vote appears a long shot, given Fernandez’s Peronist coalition does not have the two-thirds support needed to oust the officials after being weakened in the two chambers of Congress in 2021 midterm legislative elections.
Fernandez had rejected a Supreme Court ruling in December to give a larger proportion of state funds to the opposition-controlled city of Buenos Aires, before backtracking and saying that he would comply with the ruling he called “unfair”.
Reuters could not immediately reach the Supreme Court or Rosatti for comment.
The standoff with the wealthy city of Buenos Aires stems from a move by the national government to trim its funding levels unilaterally during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 to bolster police salaries in the surrounding province.
Fernandez called on his Frente de Todos coalition to support his plan to start the impeachment process in Congress.
(Reporting by Adam Jourdan; Additional reporting by Maximilian Heath; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
