Victoria Villarruel

Victoria Eugenia Villarruel (born 13 April 1975) is an Argentine politician, lawyer, writer, and activist who has served as the 38th vice president of Argentina since 2023. Described as a conservative politician, she is the founder of the civil association Centro de Estudios Legales sobre el Terrorismo y sus Víctimas (transl. Center for Legal Studies on Terrorism and its Victims), which she has chaired since its inception. She was a member of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies from 2021 to 2023. Villarruel belongs to the La Libertad Avanza political coalition. She has been accused of Argentine state terrorism denial by several media outlets and human rights organisations. Villarruel denies such accusations, maintaining that she does not support the "National Reorganization Process".

Early life and education

Villarruel was born on 13 April 1975. Her grandfather was a historian employed by the Argentine Navy; according to her, he survived four guerrilla bombings. Her father was a high-ranking Argentine Army member. In 2008, she took a course in Inter-Agency Coordination and Combating Terrorism at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, a U.S. Department of Defense institution based at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.

Activism

In the early 2000s, Villarruel hosted a radio show called Proyecto Verdad. She started her political activism with Karina Mujica's group, Memoria Completa, according to statements by Pedro Rafael Mercado, a retired Major Colonel and husband of Cecilia Pando.