A soft coup has ousted center-leftist Fernando Lugo from the presidency in Paraguay and replaced him with a long-time political enemy, Vice President Federico Franco of the inaptly namedPartido Liberal Radical Auténtico(Authentic Radical Liberal Party, or PLRA). Using as pretext a bloody confrontation last week between landless peasants occupying a large-landholding in Curuguaty, near the Brazilian border, and police forces sent to violently dislodge their encampment, a farcical political trial was carried out last Friday by the opposition-controlled Congress in which the president was accused of having failed to maintain social order in the country.[1]
Lugo, democratically elected in April 2008 and with over a year left in his tenure, was given less than 24 hours to prepare his defense, and only two hours in which to present it at trial. “Paraguay used a mechanism contemplated in the Constitution,” remarked Argentine ambassador to Paraguay Héctor Timerman, explaining why his government considers there to have been a rupture in the democratic order in its next-door neighbor, “but it was applied in such a way as to violate not only the spirit of the Constitution but all constitutional practice in the democratic world.”[2] Recognizing the summary proceedings as little more than the burlesque theatrics of the old Paraguayan oligarchy, Lugo refused to dignify the Congress with his presence, initially accepting his forced resignation when no other options appeared available.
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