The governor of Formosa, Gildo Insfrán, charged this Saturday against the Supreme Court of Justice after the request of the opposition to challenge his candidacy and prevent him from going for a sixth re-election.
"They want to annul the will of the Formoseño people and we cannot allow it, because the people are sovereign. We have not violated a single article of the Constitution, neither national nor provincial. If the Court does what the opposition beggars are asking for, it would directly erase federalism," Insfrán told reporters at an event organized in the provincial capital.
It was after the presentation of a deputy of Together for Change, Fernando Carbajal, who filed a complaint with the Supreme Court of the Nation to challenge the candidacy of Insfrán.
The highest court has suspended the gubernatorial elections in San Juan and Tucumán, by challenging the candidacies of Sergio Uñac and Juan Manzur, respectively.
Insfrán spoke of "attacks that Formosa is receiving" and then fired at the Court. "Those who have an indefinite position are those people who now have to decide, because they are up to 75 years old and as long as their good conduct and honor lasts," he said.
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"If the Court grants the opposition's request, we would cease to be a federal state. Being a democratic state, we defend the sovereign value of the popular will so that the peoples freely decide their own destiny at the ballot box," he said.
Insfrán also accused "the porteños" of wanting to appoint the next governor of the province.
"What they are looking for is not that this supreme body says that whoever speaks to them cannot be a candidate, but that the porteños what they want is that they directly say who is going to be the governor of the province of Formosa by appointment and not by vote," he said.
He also took aim at Carbajal without naming him. "There are opponents, who are already proclaimed candidates because they do not respect the electoral schedule and are already campaigning. Look inside because it seems to me that those who are a little loose of papers are you, "he said.
Carbajal this Friday again presented an amparo before the highest court, in which he asked that "the provincial election process be suspended, until this Court is issued regarding the substantive issue," that is, the constitutionality of Article 132 of the provincial magna carta that allows the indefinite reelection of the governor and vice president.
The deputy, who is also a pre-candidate for governor, had stated days ago that "if indefinite re-election is contrary to Republican principles, it should be interpreted as meaning that he can be reelected only once, even if he does not expressly say so."
The presentation reasons that the questioned article 132 of the Formoseña Constitution "constitutes a clear opposition to the spirit of the National Constitution that, in its articles 1, 5 and 123, receives for the people of the Argentine Nation, the Republican principles of Government and temporality in power." Therefore, it requests that "the unconstitutionality of the article of mention be declared and disqualify – and challenge – anyone who intends to perpetuate themselves in power, at the expense and to the detriment of the Formoseño people."
This Friday, the Attorney General of the Nation referred to the request. And although he said that the Supreme Court should not intervene in the discussion for the re-election of Governor Insfrán, he left the door open. "That Court is the maximum and final interpreter of its own pronouncements," he ruled, and "could decide the procedural intervention it deems pertinent," reads Eduardo Casal's recommendation.
The interim prosecutor, who took office when Attorney General Alejandra Gils Carbó resigned, maintained the same position as when he was summoned to issue an opinion in similar cases in the provinces of Santiago del Estero, La Rioja, or recently for the elections of Tucumán and San Juan.
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