Hours before the elections, Montenegro criticized the Buenos Aires government for free transportation.

The mayor of General Pueyrredón, Guillermo Montengero, opened another front with the Buenos Aires government after a judge in Mar del Plata forced the municipality to provide free transportation on election day .

Montenegro, who is a candidate for provincial senator for the Fifth Electoral Section in the September 7 elections, said the measure will cost the residents of Mar del Plata 300 million pesos and is "impossible to implement."

" Never in history has the municipality taken charge of an expense of this magnitude, and I have an obligation to protect the residents' money," he added, adding that he decided to notify the Buenos Aires Ministry of Transportation "so that the Province itself can decide what steps to take."

"A juvenile court judge, who should be busy keeping criminals safe, decided that in Mar del Plata, on election Sunday, public transportation would be paid for by city residents ," Montegro criticized. "It's very easy to decide from the comfort of an armchair that public transportation would be free on Sunday," he noted.

At the end of August, the Buenos Aires government published Resolution 231/2025 establishing free public passenger road and river transportation services for the September 7 and October 16 elections. It also invites municipalities to follow the initiative .

The Municipality of General Pueyrredón had announced that it would not join the resolution and warned that, since it was responsible for scheduling the elections, it was the Axel Kicillof administration that was responsible for "allocating the necessary resources to cover the costs" of free public transportation.

When it's "free", someone ends up paying for it pic.twitter.com/KAr5yiRp5V

— Guillermo Montenegro (@gmontenegro_ok) September 5, 2025

"The Province is taking the measure, but it expects the municipalities to finance it ," said Mauro Martinelli, the municipality's Legal, Technical and Finance Secretary. Since the Buenos Aires government will not allocate funds to cover the cost of the measure, transportation will not be free.

Following the denial, this Friday Judge Mariana Haydee Irianni granted an injunction filed by a Batán resident arguing that the municipality's decision " hinders the equal exercise of the constitutional right to elect representatives," reported the Mar del Plata newspaper La Capital.

The judge of the Second Juvenile Court of Mar del Plata ruled that the Municipality of General Pueyrredón must guarantee free public transportation.

In his ruling, Irianni orders "ordering Mayor Guillermo Montenegro of the Municipality of General Pueyrredón to guarantee in a real and effective manner a basic and free public passenger transportation service for September 7, 2025, during the time in which the electoral act will be held in the District of General Pueyrredón, under penalty of the provisions of art. 239 of the CP," establishes the judicial resolution.