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Paraguay coup regime out in the cold



Paraguay coup regime out in the cold

Paraguay is a country in solitude – it cannot count on international recognition since the overthrow of its president, Fernando Lugo

Federico Franco, illegitimate president of Paraguay

By José Vales, correspondent for El Tiempo (Bogotá, Colombia)

BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA, SUNDAY JULY 8 2012: With a government in the most absolute solitude, without international recognition and only sustained by the Brasilia's decision to do nothing that would affect Brasilian interests in Paraguay, for Federico Franco the best that can happen is for time to pass. And pass quickly, until the elections on April 15.

What seems much easier is for the regime to change itself, gradually but constantly, into a 'station of the cross', without a definite end in sight.

For the analysts, the outlook in Paraguay, since the overthrow of Fernando Lugo via a questionable and giddy-headed impeachment, is not for the best. The international community has turned its back on the new government, which is seeing its desire to gain public support frustrated. It has already had to call off two mass mobilisations which had been called in support of the government “because the people in the interior [of the country] didn't join in”, explains the analyst Milda Rivarola. It is a reflection of what the opinion polls say, that more than 60 per cent object to how Congress operated during the institutional crisis and the way in which the impeachment vote was held.

“We have a government which is in complete confusion, with the Chancellor functioning as Minister of the Interior and the Minister of the Interior as the Chief of Police,” and furthermore, with “the elections very close” notes Rivarola.

There was neither public support for Lugo in his last hours as head of the executive, nor for the new government, which for many arose from a parliamentary coup. There is no shortage of those who want to speculate on the coming elections, but this scenario is neither convenient for the government nor for the opposition Partido Colorado [Coloured Party, the conservatives who ruled for 60 years until defeated by Lugo in 2008].

Since Franco belongs to the minority faction of his party, the Authentic Radical Liberals (PLRA), he has no other option at the moment. Since the Colorados are immersed in an internal election process in which the businessman Horacio Cartes, who is better known for expanding his wealth and his criminal record than for activism in the hegemonic Paraguayan party, must weigh in against party president Lilia Samaniego and rising prospective candidate Zacarías Irún to settle who will be party candidate. That will not be until November, and it sets the stage for the government to reach the finish line in the April polls with a strong lead.

To the gloomy national political scene and the ever-more complicated international situation, is added that of the businesspeople who demand Paraguay's exit from Mercosur, from which it has been suspended until the coming elections.

The recent severing of relations with Venezuela, aside from going with the political flow, and the tapes in which Venezuela's ambassador to Brazil, Maximilien Sánchez Arvelais, appears rallying the troops [literally] just before Lugo's fall, are clearly politically motivated. But it escapes nobody that for years Paraguay received a third of its oil supply from Venezuela, and that now that has been cut off by the exclusive decision of Hugo Chávez; and there is a debt of $300 million pending.

“The role of Paraguay in Mercosur, just like that of Uruguay, is to stay out of the decision-making, and for this reason the government over there should not worry too much,” explains Argentinian analyst Julián Hermida.

For Hermida, the future looks bright for the Colorados “as long as the Franco government hits the deadline.”

“Here today anything can happen, including a government which is not recognised by anybody, lost to the world, deciding to stay in power,” ventures Rivarola, while observing how political virulence not seen in the streets in recent days is being manifested through social networks.

Because of this it will not be easy for Franco, when there are still people who value the Lugo government more highly. Like the analyst Carlos García, for whom the ex-president “had an excellent health and social security administration, which had succeeded in reducing poverty to one per cent.

“Whereas in previous years it had never fallen,” explains García, though pointing out that the overthrown government was “without politics and extremely lukewarm on reforms.”

A Lugo more lost than his ex-vice president in the Palacio de López, and ever further from power. And speaking of power, the Colorados, after a five-year interregnum, are now ready to say: “Just wait until we come back.”


Translated from the original Spanish by James Tweedie

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