Clean Slate: Amid distrust and accusations of "lack of codes," the group of 38 Senate allies is crumbling.

After the initial shock of the one-vote collapse of Ficha Limpia , the senators were plunged into anger, distrust, and cross-accusations that are causing the group of 38 allies —all except Kirchnerism—that spearheaded the bulk of the government's laws to crunch. Now, they agree, weeks of inactivity are coming.

" Everything is broken . There's distrust everywhere. A long hiatus is coming; we have to wait for the dust to settle and start over. We have to keep governing," acknowledges one official himself, who knows they will have to embark on a process of "reconstruction."

With six senators out of 72, they have no other option if they want to continue passing laws. However, they're not in a hurry because there aren't any bills to discuss in the short term, unless the House of Representatives soon approves the lowering of the age of criminal responsibility, which received a committee opinion this week.

The day after the session, beyond messages between those with similar interests, there was no contact to try to get the dialogue back on track. The climate is still heated, and this Sunday, four provinces have elections. Among them is Jujuy, home to the leader of the Libertarian bloc, Ezequiel Atauche, who quickly left for his province to close out the campaign. And next weekend is the Buenos Aires elections.

The truth is that the white smoke in the Vatican helped to curb the escalation of tension , especially between the PRO and La Libertad Avanza parties, which in the morning entered into an open-air war.

Within hours, the PRO party, led by Silvia Lospennato—one of the initiative's driving forces and a candidate for the City of Buenos Aires—publicly and harshly attacked the ruling party and the president himself, Javier Milei. The government allowed the presidential spokesperson, who is also Lospennato's opponent in the City of Buenos Aires, to respond, stating that the law was defeated due to the PRO party's "inexperience," which rushed to vote on it in pursuit of "electoral speculation."

Milei himself joined in and stated: "The reality is that the votes weren't there , it was all a media operation tinged with yellow ."

"You know where they're going to send them when they come to ask for votes for a law, right?" warns a radical who agrees with the logic of the PRO and other federalists, such as Alejandra Vigo from Córdoba, that the ruling party arranged with the two Misiones residents who reversed their vote and brought down the law .

" Even Kirchnerism has more codes , look what I'm telling you," said a senator who cannot be labeled a Peronist.

In turn, the two missionaries, Carlos Arce and Sonia Rojas Decut—who answer to former governor Carlos Rovira—are accused of breaking all codes. Until that afternoon, they had claimed they were voting in favor, and they arrived at the voting time without informing their colleagues. They began to stand up, almost running away in embarrassment, when the scoreboard was about to show the voting results.

As of Thursday, they still hadn't contacted their peers. Perhaps no one imagines any other response from them other than simply doing what their boss ordered. Until now, the most "suspicious" were the two Santa Cruz residents—who, in the face of distrust, released a video clarifying their support. But the Misiones residents played it quiet and crossed a line , because if they had warned earlier, there were other options to delay the law, such as calling a recess and avoiding throwing away the House's half-passage.

Barely had the session ended when Luis Juez, visibly angry, declared that he would not sit down "even to have a glass of water" with the missionaries.

As if that weren't enough, this scandal deepens the internal rifts within the factions, which are already divided over whether they support Javier Milei.