A dubious candidate

AS FORECAST, the Chamber of Deputies fell short of the two-thirds majority required to expel Julio de Vido from its ranks. Even with the vote of two-thirds of those present required, the bar was too high for the sum total of the Let’s Change ruling coalition, Sergio Massa’s deputies, the socialists and other allies. Yet the Kirchnerites (including some who have since strayed elsewhere) and the left continue retaining somewhat more than the decisive third needed to block initiatives of this kind.

Nevertheless, the Mauricio Macri administration would not necessarily interpret this vote as a failure since this drive came with the collateral aim of installing corruption as a campaign issue (with the high-flown aid of powerful media allies).

Julio de Vido, responsible for numerous sins of commission and omission while in charge of public works as the Federal Planning minister during the 12 years of Kirchnerism, is a hugely dubious candidate for any attempt to defend his honour.

We have insisted there is hard proof showing that state contracts during the “won decade” were transformed into a slush fund, which apart from the personal corruption, had a negative impact on the efficiency of public works.

We call for all this to be fairly and promptly tried – and not by judges who were exasperatingly slow in the past. The doubts here lie not with “Duvidoso” (the ex-minister’s nickname in Brazil) but with what matters most to the Macri government – institutional integrity or electoral opportunism?