The attorney’s resignation | La renuncia del Procurador

Editorial, Los Tiempos:

The departure of Wilfredo Chávez from the State Attorney General’s Office is, without a doubt, encouraging news.

This is so, because of all the dignitaries of the current administration, appointed by the President of the State, Chávez has been a benchmark of inconsistencies, incompetence and abusive exercise of the functions that he carried out since he took office, in November 2020.

Perhaps one of its most consistent actions with the political, not administrative, desires of the ruling party has been his active participation in the government party’s campaign to impose the fantasy of a “coup d’état” to erase the opprobrium of what happened in the failed elections of October 2019 and the flight of Evo Morales from the country in November of the same year.

A natural attitude in someone who served as deputy minister on three occasions and minister on one, during the Morales governments of who was later his personal lawyer, when he was out of the country.

That job was perhaps the most notorious professional precedent for this character, until he was appointed State Attorney General. While fulfilling these functions, he has been responsible for the failure to defend the interests of the State in three arbitration proceedings and one in the Andean Community of Nations, according to the findings of an opposition legislator who closely followed Chávez’s administration.

Contrary to the poor performance of the powers that the Constitution establishes for the position he held, the now ex-prosecutor achieved a certain media relevance due to occurrences outside his powers.

For example, in January 2022, Chávez, a doctor of constitutional law, attributed the escalation of Covid-19 infections in Santa Cruz to a conspiracy. According to him, “the right (was) conspiring. And (had) deliberately conspired in Santa Cruz. We have results, we have figures,” he assured.

It was not the first time that something so out of place had happened in the exercise of his duties. In September 2021, the Prosecutor had the initiative to carry out, for almost a week, a recount of the electoral records of the fraudulent elections of 2019. A completely useless action since its effects lacked legal value, as clarified by the president of the Supreme Electoral Court.

Other actions, such as his —also useless— trip to the US to attend the start of the process that the former government minister of Jeanine Áñez is following in that country, or his effort —more figurative than efficient— in the case of sexual abuse committed by priests Catholics show that, in almost three years, Chávez never fitted fully into the functions that he resigned “with a clear conscience.”

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