The Ciudadanos sector, which was founded by former Foreign Minister and former presidential candidate Ernesto Talvi, will not participate in an act of the Colorado Party in which the questioned former Minister of Tourism, Germán Cardoso, will give a speech.
Cardoso, who is now protected by his privileges as a deputy, will be one of the speakers at the PC act this Monday in Maldonado, but will not have the participation of Ciudadanos. Julio María Sanguinetti, who has been one of the most visible faces of the Colorados in favor of the “No” vote in the March 27 referendum, will also speak.
Ciudadanos Maldonado released a statement in which they declared that they do not consider Deputy Cardoso’s participation in the list of speakers “timely” “until the investigations are completed for the events that have been the subject of complaints during his management at the head of the Ministry of Tourism ”.
They also added that they raised their position before the National Executive Committee of the PC.
They expressed their support for the coalition government of Luis Lacalle Pou, beyond the fact that they intend to separate from the figure of Cardoso.
Singled out and disgraced
On August 20, 2021, Germán Cardoso resigned from his position as Minister of Tourism to quickly invest as a deputy, after a series of questions about irregular advertising purchases from the Estonian company Kirma Services OÜ.
The former National Director of Tourism said in an interview with Search that in the Secretary of State there were purchases with which he disagreed, several of them of important amounts, “some of more than half a million dollars to a single company.” Banchero had been removed from office by Cardoso himself.
Direct purchases included spending on advertising, but also on various products such as a roll of toilet paper at an amount of 200,000 pesos.
In September, the legislators of the Broad Front announced that they would file a criminal complaint against Cardoso, which in March 2021 has been expanded with more complaints and information. In that same month of September, the Kirma Services company withdrew its offer for the US$280,000 that the Cardoso administration had agreed to pay. The company went out of business “so as not to be in trouble.”
Part of the questioning of Cardoso has to do with the moment: when it was decided to spend the US$280,000, the country was totally closed to international tourism, with highly controlled borders because we were at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. .
