Unlike President Javier Milei, Villarruel is not a libertarian but a traditionalist conservative Catholic. Her father and family have a long history of connections with the far right in Argentina: her father, Javier Olivera Ravasi, served in the military during Argentina’s most recent military dictatorship, even working at one of its more violent sites of torture and murder.
Villarruel’s political career is marked by her denial of the severity of the violence and mass murder committed by the most recent Argentine dictatorship (the 1970s–1980s) and is famous for claiming that the government didn’t kill the 30,000 people it tortured and murdered. She is also an attendee of the conservative Society of St. Pius X, a traditionalist Catholic sect that is critical of what it considers to be the liberal direction of Catholic practice today.
Her role in the current Argentine administration has been sidelined by the participation of the country’s main neoliberal party in Milei’s coalition, but she remains a powerful force in his government and is first in line to succeed in the presidency.
