The convincing rulings of the Taxation Secretariat, the Anti-corruption Secretariat, the Audit Office of the Executive Branch, the Comptroller’s Office, or the Prosecutor’s Office itself were worthless. The Prosecutor’s Office took a long time to charge the Governor of the Central Departament, Hugo Javier González, and 15 other people for breach of trust, false declaration, production of non-authentic documents and criminal association for dubious works in the Central Departament.
People’s money given to mitigate the socio-economic effects of the pandemic. While more than 16 thousand people died from the effects of the coronavirus due to lack of resources in public hospitals, those funds were diverted into the pockets of one corrupt and rogue clique.
The Chamber of Deputies, rightly baptized as the Chamber of Shame, once again did its thing. It prevented the governor’s office intervention with the unanimous vote of 42 colorado deputies (cartistas and non-cartistas). In a despicable show of loyalty to Horacio Cartes, 7 liberals were absent even though their votes made no difference in favor of the ANR. Pure abjection.
Beyond the story that the cartistas tried to install by repeating like a litany “the works are there”, the gravity of the decision lies in the absolute disregard for the republican institutions created to supervise public acts and fight corruption. By the way, these institutions are run by colorado officials and that seldom point to power. There is no vendetta or political opportunism here. This is pure and hard protection.
The evidence? A mere trinket
Another fallacy was that the intervention implied a prior death sentence. An intervention is nothing more than the investigation of the denounced facts. If the commission in charge does not find the evidence of the accusations, it shall not propose the dismissal.
And even if they did, the Chamber of Deputies has the final word, which by an absolute majority of votes will decide whether or not to remove him from office. In other words, the decision is highly political. But the ANR did not allow even that, even though it has an absolute majority to flatten whatever is necessary.
And the internal elections?
Prior to the decision, there was speculation regarding the behavior of Abdo’s wing members, taking into account that the electoral scenario was polarized between Horacio Cartes and Vice-President Hugo Velázquez.
In is a simplistic view, it was conjectured that the Añetete bloc was going to vote for the intervention. For this reason, the granite-like unity of the ANR was surprising when it came to avoid transparency, above the interests of Añetete movement.
Why didn’t Añetete hit Cartes with the intervention? There are several versions. From the cartismo they say that other deputies who support Abdo will soon switch to Honor Colorado and this was their proof of faith.
Others point out that the usual “monthly payment” was more loaded than in other times. But some colorados explain it more simply: “It is a political position, no one will vote for the removal of a fellow mayor or governor”.
“If he is corrupt, let him deal with the justice system”, they affirm because they know that they have 90% of the shares of the Judicial Power. If not, let deputy Tomás Rivas say so, who, after chicaning since 2018, managed to extinguish his legal process thanks to a custom-made court that accommodated the law to benefit him.
Perhaps because Brian Skaret, the mysterious official from the US Embassy who oversaw the entire González Daher trial, was not present.
In addition, Hugo Javier has the advantage of having broken the liberal hegemony in the Central Departament after 26 uninterrupted years of opposition administration. For this reason, the colorados will not carry such a sin on their shoulders.
In the cartismo, they still do not forgive Mario Abdo for the intervention of the Ciudad del Este municipality, which meant the end of the Zacarías Irún clan. After the colorados crisis, the independent Miguel Prieto is going for his second term. “We do not know when we are going to recover it”, they point out with pure electoral logic.
Another hypothesis is the distribution of the regional administration’s budget. It is the position of the liberal deputy Edgar Acosta: “They defended Hugo Javier for a business, because they have votes. The disorganization in Central is organized, this is a scheme that is set up”.
How is the electoral logic of the traditional parties handled and especially in the ANR? They make decisions when the electoral issue is at stake, if the situation brings them votes or if they run the risk of losing them, and the money, no matter the color, because thanks to those funds (taken from corruption money, drug trafficking and other deep sources) allow them to stay in power.
With the Central case, the double discourse of the fight against corruption is falling. Neither Cartes/Peña, nor Velázquez, can justify the armored votes to the non-colorado citizens and to which they will appeal when the presidential campaign is unleashed. Perhaps they speculate with people’s poor memory, although today with social networks it is no longer so easy to bury words, actions and omissions.
The colorados say that if they approved the intervention, it would have meant dropping the ax on their feet. Even if they are blinded by power, the ax has long been pirouetting in the air.
SIC: “Specifically, (judges Héctor Capurro and Juan Carlos Zárate) violated the law. It is a regrettable ruling. The extinction (of the case of the cartista deputy Tomás Rivas) is due to an alleged integral reparation of the fact and the one who has to accept this reparation is the victim. This is done through an agreement of wills, that agreement was signed by a person who has no legal legitimacy (Pedro Alliana). It is a theater and of course we are going to appeal.” (Prosecutor Luis Piñánez)
