Sergio Ziliotto convened La Pampa's Provincial Council of the Justicialist Party with two messages running through the meeting: the need to preserve unity in order to keep governing the province and acceptance that the road to 2027 may include internal competition. Mayors, local party authorities, faction leaders and the Peronist Youth leadership joined the expanded meeting.
The gathering followed the October 17 rally, which party leaders viewed as a demonstration of territorial organization and mobilizing strength. It also celebrated the normalization of the Peronist Youth through a unity list representing different groups and towns. For Ziliotto, both developments provide an organizational base for the next electoral stage.
The picture, however, included significant absences. Santa Rosa Mayor Luciano di Nápoli and General Pico Mayor Fernanda Alonso did not attend. Their absence was interpreted through the lens of internal disagreements and the emergence of Fuerza Pampa, a new political vehicle that challenges the official leadership and forces a debate over candidacies.
The central table included Ziliotto, María Luz Alonso from La Cámpora, provincial lawmaker Liliana Robledo, Identidad Peronista leader Jorge Lezcano, Roberto Robledo, Toay Mayor Ariel Rojas and Peronist Youth president Camila Kronemberger. The composition sought to display pluralism, but it did not eliminate debate about those who stayed away.
Ziliotto also reported on a meeting at Casa de La Pampa in Buenos Aires with governors and national Peronist leaders. They reviewed the parliamentary agenda, the political environment and the following year's elections. The Council also celebrated Lula da Silva's reelection in Brazil as an example of persistence, organization and mobilization.
Government Minister Pascual Fernández said before the meeting that primaries would pose no problem and anyone willing could run. At the same time, he warned that keeping the PJ in provincial government must come before individual ambitions. His position combines open competition with one condition: the dispute must not benefit the anti-Peronist camp organized around Javier Milei.
Anguil Mayor Daniela Fernández accepted the possibility of primaries but criticized decisions that could damage Peronist continuity and said she did not understand Di Nápoli's absence. Realicó Mayor Facundo Sola took a more conciliatory tone, arguing that attendance and absence are legitimate and that unity must be built during the process.
The Council settled neither candidacies nor rules, but it defined the field of discussion. The leadership will promote dialogue and primaries if necessary while seeking to prevent new structures from becoming an electoral split. The next step is to bring absent leaders into the process, establish accepted rules and test whether the call for unity can contain a competition already reshaping La Pampa politics.
