Euclides Acevedo (72), presidential candidate for the opposition and former Minister of the Interior and former Foreign Minister, affirms that the third space can win over the traditional parties. He claimed that Lugo won the 2008 elections with other opposition candidates also present on the lists.
He stressed that he agrees with several leaders of the Guasu Front regarding the government proposals.
What do you think of the Government of Abdo Benítez?
It is a government that is culminating with the misfortune of having floods, fires, droughts plus the pandemic that did not allow a republican government to fully exercise and of course could not fulfill many of the promises, but I think it will end up being an unfinished government.
You were part of a government with high rejection, what guarantees do you offer not to follow the same path if you are elected?
Who has the rejection fee? the government or me? Being part of the government, I am in solidarity with its lights and with its shadows in the first place. Secondly, my management at the head of the Ministry of the Interior was hampered by the pandemic and instead of dedicating myself to a security policy, I dedicated myself to locking up my compatriots in an extremely thankless task, but I appreciate the tolerance and understanding of citizens. Secondly, when I took over the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I couldn’t apply traditional policies of international diplomacy either, because I had to become an aide-de-camp for the Ministry of Health and dedicated myself to looking for vaccines. I got five million without costing the national treasury a penny.
What do you think of Horacio Cartes?
Horacio Cartes is obviously in the eye of the storm, it seems to me that more than him, his policy is a policy of taking over and I had given as an example that of President Campora in Argentina who in 1973 used the Campora formula to Government, Perón to power. The Chartist project of proposing Peña is the same. Santi to the Government and Cartes to the Power. This policy of taking over is an obstacle to the institutionalization of the republic and therefore, a stalking of democratic institutions.
Does your financing come from the Cartes sector?
That is bullshit. And a lack of rigor. What do I have to do with Cartes? I have nothing to do with Chartism, my policy is my own, it is autonomous and independent. I step on my feet and think above my head, therefore that political deduction is reverend nonsense.
Where does your funding come from?
Many people say that we are financed by Cartes. Ask everyone how we are here. We are jumping from the bush (disorderly, without plan), looking for money from here to there. We finance as required by the electoral code. We finance with our own means and not breaking the law. We are not going to accept any money that comes from outside. I am going to tell you more, we are going to be the only candidate who is going to translate the honesty of our campaign with accounting numbers, we are not going to tolerate this smear campaign, we are going to respond to each attack with a counterattack.
Fast-forward to January 2023, if your campaign doesn’t catch on, could you unhorse? Or if the same thing happens with the Concertación candidate, would you ask him to dismount?
You are getting too far ahead of events. You are appealing to the question of the useful vote, the useful vote is always a democratic resource and the facts are going to advise us what we cannot predict now. I don’t know if it will be Alegre, it will be Fleitas or it will be Burt, I don’t know if it will be Wiens or Santi. But from the point of view of the opposition, the application of the useful vote is within the exercises.
What is the message you use to “seduce” the leaders of the Guasu Front?
In politics seduction does not work, that is in the field of love. In any case persuasion. And the persuasion with our friends from the Guasu Front revolves around a programmatic agreement. The programmatic agreement that we have reached, although not formalized, with the people of the Guasu Front is a two-way agreement. It is a bilateral agreement, not a contract or adhesion agreement. In this aspect we fully agree on the Tape Guasu program, it fully coincides with our proposal.
In the political history of the country there is no third candidate from outside the traditional parties who has reached the presidency. How do you take that issue?
Do you know Paraguayan political history? The only time the opposition was united, with the best Laino-Filizzola formula, it lost against the worst Red Cubas-Argaña formula. And the time an opposition leader won and the alternation took place, there were four candidates, Blanca Ovelar (ANR), Lugo (Patriotic Alliance for Change), Oviedo (Unace) and Fadul (PQ). It is worth saying then that this question of having to be united to win is not true. And you will have the privilege of seeing on April 30 how you can beat the Colorados with three or four cushions.
