Two days after losing the Colorado inmates by 92,000 votes, Arnoldo Wiens was appointed as Itaipu’s counselor, where he will earn a little more than US$12,000 as a monthly salary.
Cecilia Pérez, former Minister of Justice, former advisor to the Executive on security matters and former candidate for State Attorney General, was appointed as minister representing Paraguay before the Organization of American States (OAS), where she will receive an approximate salary of US$8,000 ( almost G. 60 million). To this we must add that both will spend about 3 months “accommodating” their new positions, so they will not have the same demands as their colleagues.
Clara Martínez, a political scientist, affirmed that our political system is managed based on prebendaryism, which is why these “awards” are given to people linked by political actors who are in power.
“It is an evil that we have to try to end because in some way it affects the democratic quality of our country. The challenge is too big and falls to the political authorities. We talked about the need to renew the public authorities because they are the same ones that are in the spheres of power and help each other”, he stated.
He argued that there are also positions of trust, which are political positions but are being misused, used arbitrarily, benefiting only the people around them.
“The technical part that has to be handled by expert, technical people has to prevail. I would like to see a change and a renewal in the way our politicians act. They act in a way that is far removed from the citizenry, from the Paraguayan people. We are in an oppressive situation of the economic crisis and it is expected that the next rulers will make the right decisions and that priority will be given to the people who have been trained to occupy the key positions”, he pointed out.
Abdo Benítez, national president, was the big loser in the last internal presidential elections. Not only did Wiens lose his presidential candidate, but he himself succumbed to Horacio Cartes for the presidency of the Colorado Party (ANR) by almost 150,000 votes.
