The opposition promotes a political trial against the …

The Paraguayan opposition is promoting a political trial against President Mario Abdo Benítez, despite the fact that the ruling party has a majority in the lower house. The parliamentary initiative includes Vice-President Hugo Velázquez. The outputs of both are requested in Congress but also in the massive marches that began last Friday in Asunción. “The causes are many, but ultimately what has generated this whole explosion refers to the grand corruption throughout this time of the pandemic and the complete lack of government management to meet basic health needs.”, declared in a dialogue with this newspaper the president of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), Efraín Alegre.

For the parliamentary initiative to prosper, 53 favorable votes would be needed out of a total of 80 lawmakers, a scenario which so far seems distant. However, the bench of centrist Patria Querida announced on Tuesday that he would support the trial. Space argued that its decision was due to the fact that “the state of social upheaval demands that its authorities answer for their actions”. With the support of Patria Querida, the opposition would add four more seats, reaching a total of 33 votes to date.

Key to the success of the impeachment is the position of the Colorado Party sector, which responds to former President Horacio Cartes (2013-2018). This is not the first time that the shadow of impeachment by parliament hangs over Abdo Benítez, after the first year of his mandate got rid of an opposition initiative through a controversial energy deal secretly signed with Brazil. In fact, the support of Cartes, Abdo Benítez’s former political rival in Colorado, was essential in putting this project aside.

In the Chamber of Deputies, the representative of the National Meeting Party, Kattya González, proposed this Wednesday in the middle of an extraordinary session a debate on the crisis situation in the country, supported by the rest of the opposition but blocked by the Colorados who left the discussion without a quorum.

The massive removal of the two colored subblocks again showed that the Chartists still support Abdo Benítez, albeit with reservations. For the moment PLRA lawmakers Rodrigo Blanco, Jorge Avalos and Celeste Amarilla are already drafting the accusation and are hoping other opposition groups will be involved in drafting it.

Towards Alegre, What he was detained for 20 days for alleged falsification of documents during the 2018 presidential elections, “Unity of Cards with Abdo Benítez means the Colorado party has enough votes in the House of Representatives to block the political trial”.

“That’s the cold analysis of the numbers. However, citizen pressure is able to overcome any circumstance that may arise in Congress. What was originally a citizen mobilization in front of the National Congress already extends to the whole country “, recalled the leader of the opposition, who assured that Congress must now “listen to the cry of the people, otherwise the people will go after them.”