Gildo Insfrán (born 19 January 1951) is an Argentine Justicialist Party (PJ) politician, who has been Governor of Formosa Province since 1995.
[1] In August 2012, journalist Jorge Lanata investigated the history of Insfrán's governorship and aired an exposé on his television program in which he depicted the province as a feudal fiefdom that is rife with corruption.
His father, who had fought in the Chaco War, passed away when Gildo was young, and his brother Miguel took on the responsibility of managing the family's finances.
His political career began in 1978, after sending a letter in February requesting employment from General Juan Carlos Colombo, the former governor of Formosa during the last military dictatorship.
As a result, Gildo Insfrán assumed a position in the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources of the province on May 5, 1978, until December 10, 1983, when he resigned to run in the legislative elections with the return of democracy.
Insfrán was elected governor for a four-year term thanks to the "Ley de Lemas" (Law of Party Slates), which had been established in 1987.
This decision was made after Joga and the Radical Civic Union presented a declaratory action to the court to disqualify Insfrán as a gubernatorial candidate.
This incident was considered an "institutional scandal" since a judge can only be arrested if he is previously removed through impeachment or caught in the act of committing a crime.
As a result, Governor Insfrán closed the Legislature, which also helped him avoid a possible impeachment trial that would have ruined his chances of being a candidate.
The news portal Opinión Ciudadana reported that José Palma's van, an associate of Francisco Nazar, the Catholic priest who competed against Insfrán for the governorship, was set on fire.
On Thursday night, three days before the elections, the candidate for mayor José Luis Maldonado from the Frente Amplio party and a companion of Nazar, was attacked with a knife by a political operative.
On Saturday the 15th, Pablo Egues, the authority of the Wichí Esperanza Community, died due to the extortion he suffered in his final days by Mayor Cristino Mendoza, who broke into his home accompanied by a group of thugs to force Egues to hand over the ID cards of the people in his indigenous community for use in the elections.
In parallel, the AMRA-Foro Médico Ciudadano de Formosa, accredited to participate in the elections as one of the observers, released a report revealing that a total of 10,000 Paraguayans (including a Paraguayan government official) crossed into Formosa's territory to vote in the elections, using only two border crossings, without including the Friendship Bridge, where pedestrians enter without any controls.
On March 30, 2015, Carlos Rívolo, federal prosecutor in the Ciccone Case, also known as Boudougate, asked Judge Sebastian Casanello to investigate the participation of Insfrán as well as various other persons, including Vice President Amado Boudou, in a maneuver related to the restructuring of the public debt of the province of Formosa with the help of a shell company called The Old Fund.
During his years in power, many of his associates have risen from poverty to great wealth, according to charges made by one lawyer, Juan Eduardo Davis.
"[6] In April 2011, national deputy Adrián Pérez visited Formosa and said that in the province there was no separation of powers, no administrative transparency, no citizen control, no independent judiciary, no press freedom, and massive corruption.
Instead of being treated like citizens with rights and obligations, he said, people in Formosa are part of a "scheme of submission" whereby the government politically and financially exploits poverty.
Merit Antonio Ferreyra, Insfrán's chief of staff, "owns the entire state and private health system," including all of the ambulances in the province.
Police and security forces have been accused of colluding with traffickers by guarding airstrips at which planes carrying drugs have landed and been unloaded.
[6] Hugo Palma, a politician in Estanislao del Campo, Formosa, had an airstrip on his property where 700 kilos of cocaine were seized from drug traffickers.
"[6] "Behind the progressive discourse," national deputy Adrián Pérez has said, "Kirchner exercises his royal power" through such "authoritarian and conservative" figures as Insfrán.