The unusual order issued by the Concertación to its legislators
It is clear that the mountain of evidence accumulated against the current occupant of the Attorney General’s Office would be enough to remove her from office. The communication from the State Department declaring Horacio Cartes “significantly corrupt” acted as a kind of booster rocket to undertake the hazardous itinerary of a political trial, experiences shipwrecked too many times even before setting sail.
Knowing this, the Coalition, which brings together 22 political parties and movements, has issued an interesting ucase lowering the line to all the legislators who are today under its umbrella: vote for the dismissal of the prosecutor or they will be expelled unceremoniously. It is the closest thing to an imperative mandate, whose prohibition has constitutional rank.
We could join the controversy that jurists and political scientists usually maintain regarding the apparent, or real, controversy between imperative mandate and party discipline. But we prefer to leave the matter to the experts.
What would be interesting to know is whether, before lowering such a strict order, the leaders of the Coalition have sat down before with deputies and senators of the club, precisely, to agree on positions, which is why they have formed the alliance. Are there or are there not enough arguments to persuade the remiss? This means, inducing them by forceful reasons to support a certain common position, in this case, going ahead with the political trial of the prosecutor. Because if from the start they already appeal to authoritarianism and imposition, it is not a very healthy birth, but rather something very close to congenital malformation.
The country needs something more than a bunch of outraged people marching in the same
direction and under consignment. The conjunctural coincidences can help to dynamite
certain obstacles in the political future but they do not build institutionality.
Dismiss a magistrate with proven corrupt conduct? Of course. But it must be a process legitimized by a rigorous adjustment to the Constitution. Some of those who live in the Concertación were once harsh critics of the political trial that led to Fernando Lugo’s resignation in 2012. They spoke ad nauseam of a summary trial, parliamentary maneuver and media execution.
Today, what drives them to the point of herding people by whip?
Persuade, honorable, do not impose. Or stop being called Concertación.
.fb-background-color { background: #ffffff !important; } .fb_iframe_widget_fluid_desktop iframe { width: 400px !important; }
The entrance Persuade, not impose was first published in The Independent.
