“Any change will necessarily have to be generated through the participation of youth.” Interview with Luis Narvaja
By Coralie Arbo.
Luis Narvaja, 32, is the youngest candidate for the mayor of Asunción. He is a native of Bañado Sur and has a long history of social activism. In this interview he talks about his four main lines of action for a municipal government “with the people” and the transformation of the capital into a “city in which it is a pleasure to live”.
If you reach the City Hall of the capital, what would your main proposals be?
We are working for a city in which it is a pleasure to live in, for an Asunción that becomes a model city and is at the level of a capital of a country. We are working on this project in conjunction with community, youth, environmental and trade union organizations. In addition, we are accompanied by professionals that provide us with advice on raising real and realistic proposals. In order to make Asunción the city we want, we will work on these four main lines of action:
The first is the economic transformation of the municipality: for this, in the first place, it is necessary to make public information transparent. It is important that people know what the municipality of Asunción is investing in and how many resources it has. That information can be accessed quickly and conveniently.
We start from the basis that all the neighborhoods of Asunción have the potential to transform and grow, and to guarantee the well-being of their inhabitants. These potentialities must be put into operation, for this they must be strongly promoted and accompanied by the Municipality with proposals such as young loans; a village banking program aimed at women; a fund for MSMEs; productive fairs; as well as alliances between the public and private sectors so that we converge on the common welfare of the people who live in the city, while generating resources.
If the country does not fall apart, it is because there are volunteers and a culture of solidarity in the society. That is my experience here in Asunción, where people volunteer to help. With the pandemic, we saw it intensively, but the people of Bahia know thousands of people who, with the floods, jointly organize themselves to collect donations, help to build houses, in the removals, with the popular pots.
The second line of action is the urban-environmental transformation of the municipality: for this we are working on a sustainable development plan with an urban-territorial code set out in goals that reflect this transformation. We want a city that is competitive, but at the same time inclusive, sustainable and aimed at improving people’s quality of life. We cannot continue to have a city that stops as soon as it rains, with unwalkable sidewalks. We need the entire city to be designed to include all people, not to exclude them, as is the case today. We want sustainable, inclusive and efficient mobility; from inclusive sidewalks to various forms of urban transport that are available around the clock. We no longer want precarious transport as it currently is, even harmful to health in this context, because infections mostly occur in closed places such as buses. The municipality must contribute to solving this reality by proposing other transport alternatives. Healthy environments are also green spaces and safe public spaces.
There is a current problem that must be dealt with urgently: as you will recall, in October of last year there was a large fire at the Cateura landfill. Just twenty-four hours later, a bill was presented that proposes the closure of the municipal landfill. Although we believe that it is urgent to reformulate the collection and final disposal of solid waste in the capital, this project did not include the community that depends directly and indirectly on that space, it did not take into account the “gancheros”, who are those who work there; therefore, it does not propose a comprehensive approach. In this sense, we proposed a comprehensive garbage recycling plan that was prepared with the engineer Ricardo Canese in conjunction with the “gancheros” themselves.
A more harmonious coexistence with the environment is urgent in Asunción and throughout the country. Asunción declared itself a “green capital” at the time; we want those words to be true. Asunción must be a city in which green spaces and streams are respected, where public squares are inclusive and safe for all families.
We also propose the creation of an institution in charge of the territorial ordering of Asunción that works in coordination with nearby municipalities; also a permanent working table between the municipality and Essap, reinforcing efforts to extend the storm drain and sewerage network (it cannot continue to reach only 50% of the territory); we must treat the served water in an appropriate way.
The third line of action is sociocultural transformation: for this, it is essential to encourage citizen participation, as well as to implement strategies that promote care for the most vulnerable sectors; disabled people, the elderly, children and adolescents, as well as gender equality (in that sense, I want to emphasize that our list to the Council is drawn up on a parity basis). For this we must strengthen and expand all services that the municipality can provide.
Floods today are a problem that has a high cost for all citizens. We must invest in a definitive solution, and we argue that that solution is coastal defense. This will guarantee that the Bañados in Asunción are no longer affected by the waters of the Paraguay River. We also propose that every citizen has the right to live in a decent home. Starting from that base, the people of the bañados are from Asunción and those lands belong to them because they were the ones who built that community. We are going to work for land titling.
On the other hand, we want to strengthen institutions such as Codeni, form a network of civil organizations and address the Covid-19 problem through the Municipal Polyclinic, so that this becomes a support system for the public health system. We believe that the municipality has to focus on solving citizens’ problems, and today the problem for all citizens is that their relatives do not have basic medicines, respirators and hospital beds. The municipality should try to solve these types of problems. We already have examples that this is possible.
We have to think of a city in which a public accountability hearing of municipal authorities is normal, in a participatory manner. People have to know what is being invested in their neighborhood and decide whether or not they agree. We do not agree with projects that are to benefit a company because it financed a certain political campaign, that is a type of corruption. We need projects that are proposed by neighborhood commissions, by organized citizens. We want accessible participation mechanisms. For example, nowadays it is very easy to access any social network, so that should be a means of participation through complaints, proposals, etc. We firmly believe that youth participation is essential to generate great changes, that is why we are going to strengthen a “youth council” through the Youth and Sports Commission to encourage active youth participation with proposals for the improvement of the quality of life in our city.
One of the problems that we identify in Asunción is that citizens do not have driver’s education. This is because there is no Road Education and Urban Coexistence Plan. We are going to intervene strongly in that through citizen education.
We also propose to decentralize the cultural sector, in the sense of using the public spaces of the neighborhoods to develop cultural activities; as well as promoting the spaces we have, such as the Manzana de la Rivera Cultural Center, the Paraguayan-Japanese Cultural Center and the Ignacio A. Pane Theater. We want to create a cultural center or an amphitheater on the Costanera; generate a municipal art fund to promote neighborhood artists; encourage proposals that come from the neighborhoods themselves —recover the history of each neighborhood, that people know why their neighborhood is called in such a way, what its origin is. We want neighborhoods that are alive, that people feel happy to live in and feel proud to be part of that community.
A high participation of the people in their neighborhoods directly contributes to safety. Although the current insecurity is partly rooted in the lack of opportunities (the population of Asunción is growing in socioeconomic inequality), we can face this not only with our economic proposal, but also with the reactivation of spaces in the communities. If people “invade” and use the public spaces available, these in themselves become safer, thanks to the action of the citizens themselves.
The last and fourth line of action is the transformation of management and taxation. Since the entry into the democratic era, the citizens of Asunción had the opportunity to elect our authorities, but we ended up having very few good managers who promoted comprehensive projects for citizens. We aim for transformative management. We are going to achieve that with the decentralization of the administration. We want municipal centers with neighborhood commissions that have permanent accompaniment.
If people are actively involved, then they will be able to see what the municipal budget is being used for and that will contribute to tax justice. Citizens will feel rewarded for paying their taxes because they will receive services that the Municipality must provide. There should no longer be political favors for belonging to that neighborhood or for being from a certain political party. That for us is a form of tax justice.
Winning municipal elections is often very difficult without an opposition alliance. What do you think about this? Do you see the possibility of an alliance feasible, considering that there are many opposing offers?
All kinds of alliances must be based on programmatic agreements. From the Guasu Front national agreement, we believe that agreements should be made on this premise and, above all, with a real commitment to compliance. If not, it will end up being an alliance with a permanently disputed government, and we don’t want to be part of that. In that sense, we were the first space that proposed to speak about this and other issues, particularly about electoral control. In general, there was a good reception from the opposition parties. All or almost all of us agree that taking care of the popular will is fundamental, so we are working on a joint electoral control platform. Later on, the panorama on the possibility of an alliance between the opposition sectors will become clearer.
Can you get out of the public management in Asunción without having affected one’s reputation? Considering previous experiences.
If a government is transparent, regardless of the results of its management, the people will be grateful. I emphasize transparency because the public will be able to know which promises were kept, which ones were not and why, as well as which were the obstacles of the promises that were not possible to achieve. Many times, we see that there are very good political projects, but they do not have the numbers in the council. Citizens must know which political sector opposes the approval of the projects. Secrecy is a flaw of traditional parties. They don’t like participatory and transparent politics. We saw it in this pandemic.
Being the youngest candidate and coming from a vulnerable sector, I know firsthand the limits set by institutions such as the municipality of Asunción. Since I was 14 years old I have been socially active. In that sense, my commitment is to provide as much space as possible so that all sectors are included in a comprehensive manner. That their proposals are listened to, considered and, above all, that they can be carried out and not remain on paper.
I would especially like to address young people: young people are the majority in our country, therefore, any change will necessarily have to be generated through our participation. The feeling that young people are fed up, we all feel it. We saw that with the last mobilizations in March. I believe that it will be reflected in the polls in October, but there must be a massive participation of the people who say enough to a corrupt system, to a party that leads us more and more to worsen our situation. We aim to transform our country and that begins by transforming our cities for a better life.
As a last comment: if the country does not fall apart, it is because there are volunteers and also solidarity. That is my experience here in Asunción, a city where people volunteer to help. With the pandemic, we saw it intensively, the people of Bahia know thousands of people who, with the floods, jointly organize themselves to collect donations, help to build houses, in the removals, with the popular pots. Since the pandemic began, they have already brought food, now it has been expanded and popular pots are assembled in front of hospitals, medicines are taken … Solidarity and volunteering in Paraguay play a fundamental role in combating and facing corruption. The people who are strongly active in volunteering are the ones who are transforming society. I have a long experience of that. I am a volunteer in the Juvensur organization (which is strongly active in Bañado Sur), I am a volunteer firefighter, active in environmental organizations and I always emphasize that volunteer organizations are the one that achieves great changes. Even the neighborhood commissions are led by people who voluntarily assume the task of working for the community.
A mayor with a real interest in transforming must have a spirit of solidarity and a high commitment to volunteering. The traditional parties present figures who only enter to collect to pay off their campaign debts. We come with a high commitment to work with the people, our management is going to be flawless in that sense. Zero corruption and work for the people, with the people.