Lugo fumes at the press

The controversial nephew has finally quit. Angel Pompeyo Maidana Lugo, who's uncle Fernando Lugo was elected president of Paraguay on April 20, has stepped down from his job as environmental consultant at Paraguay's Yacyretá hydroelectric damn after controversy arose over his appointment so soon after his uncle's election win. Carlos Alberto Franco, the brother of vice-president-elect Federico Franco, also quit his brand new job at the damn.

Although Ángel Pompeyo was forced into quitting by his uncle, according to Ultima Hora, Fernando Lugo was in no mood to discuss his decision with reporters this morning. As he walked down the Congress steps he lashed out "if the dictatorial press will let me, I'd like to get through."

Perhaps a poor choice of words for someone who was elected to bring about the end of 60 years of one-party rule in impoverished Paraguay. Add to that the fact that his victory was due in no small part to the relentless pressure of the media on the incumbent Colorado Party, and you can see why Lugo isn't getting of to such a great start.

Photo Ultima Hora.

Paraguay: Same old, same old

Fernando Lugo, who won the Paraguayan presidency in April on the promise of ending decades of corruption by the incumbent Colorado party, has suffered his first setback. Both his nephew and the brother of vice-president elect Federico Franco have apparently been appointed to lucrative positions in the administration of the Yacyretá dam, one of the two bi-national hydroelectric plants which Paraguay shares with its neighbours. These massive dams have been the traditional milking-cow of corrupt Paraguayan governments.

Lugo breakfasts on the campaign trail in 2007. Photo Paul Scheltus

Angel Pompeyo Maidana Lugo is to receive a salary of between 7 and 9 million guarani or between 1750 and 2250 US dollars for environmental services, reports Ultima Hora. His appointment and that of Carlos Franco was a request of the 'transitional work group' claims the current director of the damn Paul Sarubbi. The work group's job is to prepare for the ascension of Lugo as president on August 15.

According to Mercedes Lugo, the mother of Angel and soon-to-be first lady, Yacyretá "did the right thing," by appointing her son, she told ABC Color. Curiously though, the Alliance for Change, Lugo's party, have denied the nomination and say they know nothing about it.

Angel Maidana's uncle and long-time Colorado party member, Pompeyo Lugo (photo, with moustache) also defended his nephew's appointment saying he should be earning "two to three times as much."

Both former bishop Fernando Lugo and Federico Franco are abroad and have not yet commented.

A new era, a new headache

ASUNCION - Paraguay awoke yesterday with the realization that things would never be the same. Elections on Sunday brought an end to 61 years of rule by the Colorado party and turned a former bishop into president-elect. Fernando Lugo beat the government candidate, Blanca Ovelar by a margin of 10 percentage points, bringing about the fall of a party widely accused of corruption and nepotism.

Lugo's supporters flood the streets. Photo InfoLatam.com

Long before the official results were announced supporters of the former priest flooded the streets of Asunción, waving flags and honking the horns of their cars. For many people the day marked the real beginning of a democracy despite the fact that the fall of the dictator Alfredo Stroessner took place 18 years ago. For the first time since 1947 the Colorado party was forced to vacate the presidential palace, making way for a new era in Paraguayan history.

Lugo’s victory and the hope he has awakened in those who voted for him is a credit to his charisma and the perception of many people here that he is mild-mannered and honest. He is not, however, an experienced politician or a hardened deal-maker, qualifications which could prove necessary to manage the quagmire that is Paraguayan politics. Nor does he have the backing of one homogeneous party with a single programme. Rather, his supporters range from communists to liberals including left-wing farmers’ collectives and indigenous groups. Lugo’s problems could just be starting.

“People have enormous expectations now and they will be looking to Lugo for rapid answers to the many problems in Paraguay,” says political analyst Roberto Sosa. He fears Paraguayans will expect miracles of the former-priest and be disappointed when they see that change is slow.
The fact is, Paraguay’s ills are of such a scale that any progress is likely to be slow and difficult. 35 percent of the people are unemployed or work in the informal economy. That same amount live in poverty and almost 20 percent are unable to afford a basket of staple foods on a daily basis. Despite economic growth thanks to soaring world commodities prices, that percentage of extremely poor has only increased in recent years.

The agricultural boom which drives Paraguay’s economy has forced thousands of peasants, unable to adapt, to exchange their rural homes for the slums of Asuncion and Buenos Aires. Others left for Spain or the US. Meanwhile rampant crime and a flawed judicial system have made people anxious about their safety and also spawned emigration.

The former bishop has promised his countrymen he will implement a land reform to redistribute wealth in one of the most unequal societies in the region. He has said he will invest heavely in health and education, as well as create the conditions for the thousands of migrants to return home.

To pay for those reforms he says he will confront Brazil and Argentina about renegotiating the royalties from the immense Itaipú and Yacyretá hydro electrical plants that these nation share.
In Itaipú, Brazil and Paraguay share the energy produced 50/50. However Paraguay only uses 5 percent and according to the treaty, must sell the remaining 45 percent to its partner at cost price. On the other hand Brazil paid for the construction of the damn back in the 1960’s

Now the Paraguayans want a market price for their share of the energy. Sectors of the media in Paraguay have been demanding renegotiation of those treaties for several years and Lugo has taken up that banner. But renegotiation won’t be easy. Brazilian president Lula da Silva repeated yesterday what he has been saying all along, that the treaty is non-negotiable. As for Argentina, given its current energy crisis it also unlikely to be an easy negotiating partner.

Getting the political support he needs to face up to Paraguay’s two larger neighbours will be another challenge for Fernando Lugo. The ragtag alliance that brought him to power won’t have anything like a majority in parliament. To get anything done the former bishop will have to work together with ex-general Lino Oviedo. Oviedo came in third in Sunday’s elections but his party Unace party will expectedly hold sway over a key part of the new congress as soon as it’s make-up is definite. Besides, the Colorados will remain the largest party, although reduced in size.

To make matters more complicated Lugo has said on various occasions that Paraguay needs to draw up a new constitution. He insists, with some grounds, that both the judicial system and the parliamentary process need to be redesigned. But opening the Pandora’s box of constitutional reform, maybe setting Paraguay up for the kind of ongoing civil strife that has all but paralyzed neighbouring Bolivia. In Ecuador and Venezuela the process of rewriting the constitution also polarized those countries, pitting two halves of the population against each other.

The good news is that the Catholic Church seems to have accepted Lugo’s choice to swap the pulpit for the soapbox. At first that decision was met with resistance from Rome, where Cardinal Re decided to suspend Lugo. The cardinal insisted that former bishop was nonetheless still a priest and therefore should stay out of politics.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the church in Asuncion declared that the papal nuntius would plead for the former bishop's case with the Pope in the hope of finding a solution to his status, “in the interest of social peace.”

Calling in the cavalry

ASUNCIÓN – For the first time since he announced his candidacy in December 2006, the campaign of former bishop Fernando Lugo is starting to show signs of vulnerability.

Fernando Lugo (centre) is accompanied by his vice-presidential candidate Frederico Franco (left) and Hebe de Bonafini of the Argentine human rights group Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo as he walked from his house to the polling booth this morning. (photo PIT)

An opinion poll released by the Ultima Hora newspaper a week before the election on Sunday put the candidate for the Patriotic Alliance for Change at 34.5 percent of the vote, slightly more than 5 points ahead of his nearest rival, ex-general Lino Oviedo. Blanca Ovelar, running for the Colorado party came in a very close third with 28.5 percent.The lead is still significant, but less than it was in February, when Lugo could claim almost 39 percent of the vote. More importantly it shows that while Lugo and Oviedo have more or less stagnated in the polls, the government's candidate is quickly gaining on them.

The difference with a few months ago is that now the mighty Colorado machinery has been put into gear. The party has been in power for over 60 years controls most of the bureaucracy. Now it's closing the ranks and calling for a show of hands on Sunday. Public servants received a personal note from former education minister Ovelar reminding them what the government had done for them. They were also invited to attend rallies and political events in support of the government candidate.

Anyone walking down the street in Asuncion is impressed by the number of SUV's bearing huge red flags and honking their horns. Government buildings are draped in propaganda. Even Paraguay's most famed author, the deceased Augusto Roa Bastos, was used – or perhaps abused - in this campaign. He once famously suggested that his country might be better off being run by a woman. The Colorado party has pounced on those words, using them to promote the would-be first female president of Paraguay.

There's violence too, opposition leaders say. "They've killed at least two leaders of the Tekojoja movement (which supports Lugo) in the last month," claims Belarmino Balbuena, a rural leader and candidate for senator. Although he doesn't know who's responsible, Balbuena believes the escalation of violence is meant to intimidate voters.

Other tactics are also being employed. Last weekend Defence Minister Nelson Mora was linked to the retaining of 200 identity documents belonging to residents in a poor neighbourhood in Asunción. Mora and his aides had gone to the neighbourhood supposedly to hand out food. After he left some of his co-workers told the people that to receive more food they would have to hand in their documents, which 200 did. Opposition parties were notified of the extortion and warned the team of OAS observers, who promptly went to look for themselves. The opposition Liberal Party pressed charges. The intention was obvious – without an identity card, you can't vote. Meanwhile there have been numerous rallies around town and across the country, with massive handouts, to drum up support for Blanca Ovelar.

Last Saturday the party even organized a march of the 'Republican Cavalry,' something dating back to the days of the Colorado dictator General Alfredor Stroessner. Senators and government ministers arrived at the Plaza Caballero on horseback while Ovelar entered the arena in a horse drawn buggy. Spectators attending the rally waved their red handkerchiefs, as president Nicanor Duarte scolded Fernando Lugo for apparently having banned such an equestrian gathering while he was bishop of San Pedro. "As for this hypocritical monseñor who banned a spectacle of the people, we will make him pay in votes," the president said.

In fact the Colorado party may well be served by fewer votes, at least in general. Everything indicates that the ruling party stands to benefit from a low turn out. According to the poll published by Ultima Hora, the lower the turnout the better the chances of Blanca Ovelar. If only 40 percent of the country's three million eligible voters show up, Ovelar will beat Lugo by 34 to 31 percent. For Lugo to win with a clear margin at least a 55 percent must show up. It won't come as a surprise then that the campaign of the former bishop is doing everything it can to get out the vote.

Crucial, in that sense, are the two million Paraguayans who live abroad. By law they can't vote outside of Paraguay, a rule that favours the Colorado party, whose iron grip is felt more closely in Caacupé than in Madrid or New York. Nonetheless Lugo has been wooing their support, hoping that they in turn will influence their family and friends in Paraguay. To do so he has taken to the information highway launching several videos on the YouTube Internet site over the past year, addressing his compatriots abroad.

Meanwhile, a huge chunk of the Paraguayan diaspora lives not in Spain or the US but across the border in Argentina. Somewhere between 800,000 and 1.5 million Paraguayans reside and work at least part of the year in our country. Getting them to make the journey to north to vote on Sunday could put Lugo well on the way to victory. In that light, President Cristina Fernández' decision to give Paraguayans the day off on the Friday before and the Monday after the elections, was seen by many here as a muted sign of support for the bishop.