Through a public statement, the former Minister of Defense of the government of Sebastián Piñera and former RN deputy, Mario Desbordes, responded to the revelations made by Cyprus about its implications in the appointment of Minister María Teresa Letelier to the Supreme Court.
Desbordes, today a candidate for mayor of Santiago, assured that there was nothing illegal in the process and criticized the way in which the information has been interpreted. However, despite the fact that in his speech the former president of RN also stated that the appointment of Minister Letelier did not need his help and that he intervened in a “normal” way as leader of the party to “balance” the votes in the Senate, the Conversations published by the aforementioned medium predate all that.
“The present day, Cyprus “has published a note where he talks about lobbying and other things regarding the appointment of a Supreme Court minister,” Desbordes began. “It is important to clarify that there is nothing reprehensible here, nothing illegal, nothing illicit,” she insisted.
In that sense, Desbordes maintained that Judge Juan Poblete, then president of the Court of Appeals of Copiapó, requested his support when Minister Letelier had already been appointed by the Supreme Court and the Piñera government for the vote in the Senate. “The role of leadership within the parties is precisely to help align the votes in the Senate with the government’s proposals,” he added.
The issue here is that what Desbordes points out openly contradicts the conversations revealed by Cyprus. This is how Poblete appears, at first, asking for support for Letelier when the group was not even formed by the Supreme Court. She then did it in a second moment, when she had not yet been elected by former President Piñera, and finally when she was preparing to ratify her name in the Senate. In that last act, Desbordes was no longer president of the party, which made him less able to satisfy his senators.
“That the president of the Court of Appeals of Copiapó, who at that time was Minister Poblete, request some help for a minister who is already appointed by the Supreme Court in a quina, who is already appointed by the government—of Piñera— to the Senate, helping the senators is completely normal,” stated the candidate for mayor of Santiago.
The former minister highlighted Letelier’s judicial career, pointing out his more than twenty years of service and his proposal by the Supreme Court “without anyone’s intervention.” Likewise, he highlighted that his appointment in the Senate was unanimous, which shows, according to him, that he “could not have needed a little help.”
The former RN helmsman and mayoral candidate also criticized the quick reaction of political figures after the publication of the note. “The only strange thing is that a few minutes after Cyprus takes out this note, the councilors of the Communist Party and the mayor of Santiago (Irací Hassler) begin to make comments. “That’s weird,” she said.
Finally, Desbordes suggested that these accusations could be motivated by the upcoming electoral campaigns and asked for help to spread his version of the events: “Help me spread this, since the friends of this media and all its satellite media have been trying to sow a doubt regarding that process.”
The controversy continues, but Desbordes insists that everything was transparent and within the legal framework, defending both his actions and the integrity of the process that brought Letelier to the Supreme Court.