Actions v Rhetoric: The Legacy of Mario Abdo Benítez

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*By Ale­jan­dro Aguil­era

Since the in­au­gu­ra­tion of Pres­i­dent San­ti­ago Peña, it has be­come rou­tine to hear col­leagues from Honor Col­orado ac­cuse the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion of leav­ing a “heavy legacy”. Ac­cu­sa­tions range from al­leged un­paid debts to mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds and cor­rup­tion.

More­over, Con­gress­man Yamil Es­gaib even went so far as to sug­gest that Mario Abdo Benítez should wear an elec­tronic an­kle bracelet, equat­ing him with a crim­i­nal at risk of flee­ing.

How­ever, it’s wise to pause and look be­yond the rhetoric. If the por­trayal of the Abdo Benítez ad­min­is­tra­tion is so neg­a­tive, why do so many of­fi­cials from his ad­min­is­tra­tion not only re­main in their po­si­tions but some have even been pro­moted?

Let’s re­view some names. Al­fredo Mon­gelós re­mains the head of SINAFO­CAL; Juan Car­los Duarte con­tin­ues as pres­i­dent of CONA­TEL; Fe­lix Sosa re­mains pres­i­dent of ANDE; Édgar Ruiz re­mains the ex­ec­u­tive sec­re­tary of the Sec­re­tariat for the De­vel­op­ment of Repa­tri­ates and Na­tional Refugees; José Car­los Camper­chi­oli con­tin­ues as pres­i­dent of SENACSA; Cristina Gorawleski re­mains pres­i­dent of IN­FONA; and Manuel Ochip­intti re­mains pres­i­dent of the Na­tional De­vel­op­ment Bank.
De­spite the me­dia cam­paign against him and ef­forts to tar­nish his legacy, for­mer Pres­i­dent Abdo Benítez can find so­lace in the facts. Con­tin­ued ap­point­ments and pro­mo­tions of his for­mer as­so­ci­ates in the new gov­ern­ment un­der­score a clear mes­sage: his ad­min­is­tra­tion made the right de­ci­sions.

The list goes on. Juan Rafael Ca­ballero, for­mer gen­eral di­rec­tor of the Min­istry of In­dus­try and Com­merce’s Cab­i­net, be­came deputy min­is­ter of Jus­tice; Óscar Stark moved from deputy min­is­ter of Trans­port to deputy min­is­ter of Com­merce; Amanda León, for­mer BNF man­ager, be­came pres­i­dent of the Agri­cul­tural Credit Board of Di­rec­tors; Stella Marys Guil­lén, for­mer mem­ber of the AFD board, is now pres­i­dent of AFD; Marco Elizeche, for­mer deputy min­is­ter of fi­nan­cial ad­min­is­tra­tion at the Min­istry of Fi­nance, moved to deputy min­is­ter of fi­nan­cial ad­min­is­tra­tion at MOPC; Guido Benza, cur­rent deputy min­is­ter of trans­port, was the gen­eral di­rec­tor of the Min­istry of Pub­lic Health and So­cial Wel­fare; Lilio Car­dozo, for­mer gen­eral di­rec­tor of in­ter­nal au­dit at the Min­istry of De­fense, is the cur­rent deputy min­is­ter of De­fense.
Fur­ther­more, the list in­cludes Adri­ana Or­tiz, for­mer di­rec­tor of the Paraguayan In­sti­tute of Crafts, now Min­is­ter of Cul­ture; Óscar Lovera, for­mer BNF board mem­ber, cur­rently deputy min­is­ter of fi­nan­cial ad­min­is­tra­tion at the Min­istry of Fi­nance; Fran­cisco Ruiz Díaz, for­mer deputy min­is­ter of in­dus­try, cur­rent pres­i­dent of the Na­tional In­sti­tute of Rural De­vel­op­ment and Land (In­dert); Car­los Pereira, for­mer Min­is­ter of Ur­ban­ism, Hous­ing, and Habi­tat (MUVH), now a mem­ber of the IPS coun­cil; Os­car Orué, from deputy min­is­ter of the State Tax­a­tion Sub­sec­re­tary, moved to Na­tional Di­rec­tor of Tax Rev­enues (DNIT); and Wal­ter Emilio Gutiér­rez Cabr­era, cur­rent Min­is­ter of Child­hood and Ado­les­cence (Minna), was deputy min­is­ter of Plan­ning, Pro­grams, and Pro­jects at Minna.

As can be seen, this long list of for­mer of­fi­cials from the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment in the new ad­min­is­tra­tion is a re­sound­ing re­but­tal to the ruth­less rhetoric against for­mer Pres­i­dent Abdo Benítez. If his ad­min­is­tra­tion was truly so dis­as­trous, why is there such a clear reval­i­da­tion of his of­fi­cials in the new ad­min­is­tra­tion?

Per­haps what’s re­ally at play here is a fa­cade, a sim­ple po­lit­i­cal strat­egy seek­ing to jus­tify the in­her­ent dif­fi­culty of gov­ern­ing. But ac­tions speak louder than words. The vin­di­ca­tion of Mar­i­to’s ad­min­is­tra­tion, through the rat­i­fi­ca­tion and pro­mo­tion of his for­mer as­so­ci­ates, shows that not every­thing was bad. Like every ad­min­is­tra­tion, there were mis­takes, but also un­de­ni­able achieve­ments.

What we no­tice is a re­cur­ring nar­ra­tive in our re­cent po­lit­i­cal his­tory, which places the blame for all mis­steps on for­mer pres­i­dents, while at­tribut­ing suc­cesses to cer­tain min­is­ters. This nar­ra­tive sug­gests that these of­fi­cials op­er­ated in iso­la­tion from pol­i­tics, as though their pub­lic du­ties weren’t over­seen and en­dorsed by the lead­er­ship, and that their ef­fec­tive man­age­ment was solely a re­sult of tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise.

De­spite the me­dia cam­paign against him and ef­forts to tar­nish his legacy, for­mer Pres­i­dent Abdo Benítez can find so­lace in the facts. Con­tin­ued ap­point­ments and pro­mo­tions of his as­so­ci­ates in the new gov­ern­ment un­der­score a clear mes­sage: his ad­min­is­tra­tion made the right de­ci­sions.

In times when nar­ra­tives are quickly built and dis­trac­tions are sought to avoid ad­dress­ing real is­sues, it’s vi­tal for cit­i­zens not to lose per­spec­tive.

Be­cause, at the end of the day, as the pop­u­lar say­ing goes, “ac­tions speak louder than words”. And in this po­lit­i­cal game, Mar­ito could look at the cur­rent gov­ern­ment and, smil­ing, say: “I am the only one miss­ing”.

*Na­tional Con­gress­man 2023-2028
Cover Im­age: Cham­ber of Deputies of Paraguay