MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguayan president gets along with Milei, but not quite so with Alberto

When asked by hostess Juana Viale about how to properly address him, Peña replied: “I prefer you to call me Santi.”

Paraguayan President Santigo Peña said during a TV show aired this weekend in Buenos Aires that he had a tough time dealing with former Argentine President Alberto Fernández but was pretty much on the same page with Javier Milei.

 

 

Peña attended the show during the week after meeting with Milei in an unpublicized encounter. “It was a spectacular meeting. It was the third meeting. We talked at length about the bilateral agenda and the great challenges at the international level. We have to be together. Ideology has done a lot of damage,” the Paraguayan head of state said.

“I have a good personal and diplomatic relationship with [Brazilian] President [Luiz Inácio] Lula [da Silva]. With Javier, there is a much greater harmony. He has shown enormous affection towards Paraguay,” Peña also explained.

“It was not an easy relationship with Alberto. I think he never got along with me,” he said about “ideological and generational” issues.

He also recalled his meeting with then-Economy Minister and presidential candidate Sergio Massa in August. “I gave him a head of state treatment practically, I received him with all my cabinet. We had a conversation, I told him 'Let's put a pause on the toll issue until we reach an agreement' and he told me 'Perfect'. We went out, we announced, he was still in Asunción and when he arrived in Buenos Aires there was a counter-order,” Peña underlined.

Regarding Milei's measures, Peña, a graduate economist, said that this was the “darkest part of the night... when you cut spending.”

“It is difficult politically to decrease spending, but it is the necessary path. I am hopeful. My impression is that President Milei is on the right path. Paraguay also experienced these costs. In 2002 it was not possible to pay retirees, public works were behind schedule,” he added.

When asked by hostess Juana Viale about how to properly address him, Peña replied: “I prefer you to call me Santi.”

Meanwhile, in Paraguay and under Decree 1,264/2014, all clocks were moved backward one hour as of midnight Saturday and are now in a time zone known as UTC -4.