Current president of Paraguay posts video with Bolsonaro days before leaving office

The current president of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez, published a video on social networks this weekend, in which he appears greeting former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) for his achievements in the country throughout the government that ends this Tuesday (15). ). The recording shows, among other works, the second bridge with Brazil, the Ponte da Integração, which began to be built in 2020 and should be inaugurated in 2024.

The recording also shows Benítez signing the agreement for the construction of the bridge at the end of the government of former President Michel Temer (MDB), in December 2018. However, there is no mention of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), with whom he met in March for Enio Verri’s (PT) inauguration as general director of Itaipu Binacional.

“In our government, we built three great bridges that boosted the country’s development,” Benítez said in the post (see here).

In addition to the Integration Bridge, the video also shows the Héroes del Chaco Bridge, which connects the capital Asunción to the Chaco region, and the Bioceánica Bridge, which is part of the Bioceánica Route that runs from Brazil to Chile, passing through Paraguay and Argentina. .

The publication of the video took place two days before Benítez left the government and inaugurated Santiago Peña, elected with 43% of the votes, in a ceremony that will be attended by Lula. The Brazilian president and the new Uruguayan representative are discussing the revision of the Itaipu Treaty, in force for 50 years and which, with the end of the payment of the plant’s debt, may have new rules for the sale of surplus energy that Paraguay has right.

Although he has met with Brazilian leaders, Benítez has stood out as one of the most critical voices in South America against leftist governments that support dictatorships in nations such as Bolivia, Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. Its firm positions in the regional political scenario establish a clear ideological guideline in its governmental approach.