After two meetings, one of them incidental, the deputies of the “B” caucus of the Chamber of Deputies decided not to accompany the impeachment trial against Sandra Quiñónez, Attorney General of the State.
After the morning meeting where Hugo Capurro and Enrique Mineur almost came to blows, they decided to reject the request for dismissal.
Hugo Ramírez, Deputy for the ANR (pro-government party), the party promoting the political trial, stated that this does not change the plan, and that, in the same way, they will continue to seek votes before presenting the request before the plenary session of the Lower House.
“We are going to continue working on our own. Trying to have as many signatures on the accusatory libel. Then we will seek the votes to start the impeachment process, before moving on to the next constitutional step, which is the Senate”, he detailed.
He commented that they are not in a hurry nor are they pausing to present the accusatory libel before the plenary session of the Lower House.
“We have no plan ‘B’, only plan ‘A’. First, we define promoting impeachment as a caucus. We did it in a unanimous accompanied debate. We then define an artboard for the artboard layout. After that, we are looking for the votes”, he sentenced.
A two-thirds majority of those present is needed to pass the impeachment (53 votes if all 80 legislators are present). So far, the block that supports the impeachment would have 46 votes and needs 7 more to reach the minimum required.
The Llanista bench has 8 legislators, they are the following deputies; Édgar Ortiz, Marcelo Salinas, Hugo Capurro, Manuel Trinidad, Sergio Rojas, María López Rotela, Enrique Mineur and José Reinaldo Rodríguez. According to Blas Llano himself, deputy Celso Maldonado would also join, but this has not yet been made official.
CAUSES
The accusatory libel has 10 grounds for dismissal. One of them is the inaction of the Public Ministry in the sanction of the authors and accomplices in the patrimonial damage to the public budget around the construction of the unfinished “Metrobús Urban Reconversion Project”.
Another is the complicity of the Prosecutor’s Office with the bank authorities since they did not issue alerts (STR Suspicious Operation Reports) in the Darío Messer case and despite this, they have not yet been prosecuted.
Mention is also made of the assassination of Rodrigo Quintana, a young leader of the Liberal Party (PLRA), at the hands of police officers at the party’s headquarters. To date, the case remains unsolved.
There is also the lack of progress in emblematic cases of corruption such as those of Óscar “Nenecho” Rodríguez, mayor of Asunción, and Hugo Javier González, governor of Central.
