The biography that the Frente Amplio senator Alejandro Sánchez (MPP) presented to Parliament indicates that he began his work activity at the age of twelve, helping his father at a vegetable stand.
It all started this Monday in the Budget and Finance Commission of the Senate, during the extensive exposition of the Ministry of Housing in relation to the Accountability project. When the space for questions opened, Sánchez was one of the most active legislators, which led to a “joke” by his nationalist colleague Graciela Banchi who, being mentioned off the microphone, was not recorded in the official minutes of the session.
There, the senator made reference to the experience of the MPP legislator as a showman, who according to Bianchi had no other intention than to make fun of the repeated interventions “giving an opinion on everything” by the Frente Amplio legislator, who nevertheless seemed to take it seriously. Her response was detailed in the final text of the commission that day.
“Regarding the comments that are made off the microphone about my past as a pitchman, I would like to say that I take it with a lot of pride” Sánchez took care to make it clear when considering “it is quite sad that comments are made outside”, although without alluding to Bianchi.
In an interview with Easy To Deviate, Sánchez referred to the episode again and did not take it as a joke. “A senator yelled at me that since she was selling eggs at the fair she couldn’t talk,” she said.
The issue did not stop there and was taken up this Tuesday in the same area by another MPP senator, Sebastián Sabini, who caused a curious exchange with the president of the commission, the nationalist Gustavo Penadés.
After a prolonged intervention by the authorities of the National Administration of Public Education (ANEP), it was time for the round of questions. There Sabini resorted to irony. “I have a past as a pitchman, I don’t know if I can speak,” she announced. Penadés she asked what she was referring to.
There Sabini said that during the year 2000 he resorted to selling ceramics in the Sarandi pedestrian street to support himself, while he was studying at the Artigas Institute of Professors (IPA). “I raise it because there were interventions yesterday about it,” she recalled when referring to Bianchi’s comments.
Penadés chose to play along. “Tell me, did the business go bad for him and he decided to go into politics because of that?” he asked her. “It went very well,” Sabini replied. But Penades insisted. “So what are you doing here?” he asked. “Disturb”, replied the senator from the Front.
Penadés continued with the irony and said he did not believe in that statement. “You always contribute. Yours is very interesting” he told her, concluding the exchange.
Consulted by El Observador, Bianchi insisted that it was all a joke. “I really appreciate both of them,” she said, referring to Sánchez and Sabini. “They know he was screwing around.”
