Asunción, Apr 17 (EFE).- The figure of former president Fernando Lugo has been left in the middle of a controversy between progressive sectors in Paraguay that are vying for the support of the also candidate for senator, who is recovering from a cerebrovascular accident (CVA) and is one of the referents of the opposition facing the general elections on April 30.
Members of the Guasu Front, the alliance of left-wing parties headed by Lugo, and relatives of the former president accuse each other of using the image of the 71-year-old leader, who returned to Paraguay on March 24 after spending six months in a rehabilitation clinic in Argentina due to the stroke he suffered on August 10, 2022.
His family doctor and senator for the Guasu Front, Jorge Querey, expressed on Twitter his “disagreement with the manipulation of a beautiful friendship” between Lugo and the former Uruguayan president José ‘Pepe’ Mujica (2010-2015), who this Saturday visited the former ruler and ex-bishop.
On Lugo’s Twitter account, a trill appeared that day in which he thanked the visit “of compañero Pepe Mujica and friend Efrain Alegre”, the candidate of the opposition alliance Concertación Nacional.
In the message, on behalf of the leader, “the commitment to change” was reaffirmed.
“That kind of situation is not manipulated, that kind of dirty tricks are not done within an electoral framework. Everything has a limit, ”said Querey in a video that he uploaded on the same Saturday to his account on the same social network.
Querey, who is a senator for the Guasu Front, aspires to the Vice Presidency as a formula of former Foreign Minister Euclides Acevedo, who ran for the New Republic movement, which is not part of the Coalition, the coalition promoted by Lugo.
For his part, the communication secretary of the Guasu Front, Diego Verón, said in a statement released on Sunday that Lugo’s son-in-law, Luis Paciello, “has unilaterally and arbitrarily assumed control of the Twitter account” of Lugo.
In this sense, he clarified, as press officer and manager of the senator’s social networks, that he has no “evidence” that the texts that are currently being published in that account “respond to legitimate expressions” of the leader.
Verón indicated that Lugo has agreed to receive visits from different political actors, but stated that “there is no evidence that this has ever implied adherence to any presidential plate.” He also pointed out that the Guasu Front does not support any “specific” duo.
In an interview with Radio Ñandutí, the senator of the Guasu Front, Sixto Pereira, complained about the publication on Lugo’s Twitter of the photographs of his meeting with Mujica together with Alegre and Senator Esperanza Martínez, among others.
Pereira described as “irrational” and “excessive” the way in which the senator’s account is being used.
“He puts things in the name of Lugo there as if Lugo took that position,” said Pereira, who warned that the senator “is not yet in a position to take that type of step and opinions.”
For his part, Paciello assured this Monday that he was the victim of “attacks” by “a sector” of the Guasu Front.
“In one way or another, he looks for ways and directs his missiles towards me because of his closeness to President Lugo, and because I always had the sin of telling President Lugo the whole truth,” Paciello told ABC Cardinal radio.
In addition, he called the statement from the Guasú Front press secretary “preposterous”, whom he accused of “misusing” Lugo’s account to “retweet a false statement, without authorization”, which he assured caused an “internal crisis” in the game.
Paciello pointed out that Lugo himself authorized a change in the administration of his account.