Paraguai: uma nova Honduras?

Texto publicado no site da revista "The Economist" que compara a situação do Paraguai face aos acontecimentos recentes vividos em Honduras (isolamento do Executivo). Vale a pena ler!

FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT

Paraguay’s first left-leaning president, Fernando Lugo, has seen his governing coalition fracture, and faces new and odd political alliances in Congress. This will make it more difficult for him to secure the support of the congressional authorities for his agenda over the next 12 months. Furthermore, this new scenario raises the question of whether Mr Lugo is at risk—given Paraguay’s record of institutional instability over the past 20 years—of being ousted from government, either legally or via a civilian-military coup d’état similar to what occurred in Honduras in June.

As a result of upsets in the June 26th elections to pick new leaders in Paraguay’s Congress, the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA), the main party in the governing coalition, decided to abandon the alliance, called Alianza Patriótica para el Cambio (APC). Nonetheless, its party members have held on to their government posts, despite the deteriorated relations between the PLRA and the executive.

House of cards

Frantic negotiations preceded the annual elections to select the authorities of both legislative houses and resulted in a deal between the opposition Unión Nacional de Ciudadanos Éticos (Unace) and the PLRA on June 24th. However, last-minute discussions among other opposition parties—Asociación Nacional Republicana (ANR, more commonly known as Partido Colorado), Partido Patria Querida (PPQ) and minor leftist APC member parties—subsequently overrode the PLRA-Unace Senate deal. Consequently, PPQ secured the presidency of the Senate; ANR, the first vice-presidency; and Movimiento Popular Tekojoja (MPT, one of three minor leftist parties represented in the upper house) the second vice-presidency.

The Senate outcome was a blow to both the PLRA and Unace, who were left out of leadership positions. Given other existing tensions, the fact that parties allied to the APC joined the group that undermined the initial agreement triggered the PLRA’s departure from the alliance. As for Unace, its head, Lino Oviedo (a retired general with alleged involvement in a number of past coup attempts), had until then been perceived to be the referee of Paraguayan politics given his recent power to tip voting outcomes in Congress.

In the lower house, the PLRA-Unace pact was not challenged and thus the PLRA retained both the presidency and second vice-presidency, and Unace the first vice-presidency.

President damaged

This turn of events could substantially weaken President Lugo. His ability to sustain his alliance with the PLRA was key to governability, as he rose to office (he was inaugurated in April 2008) without the backing of his own strong political movement. A former Catholic bishop, Mr Lugo was an outsider to politics, emerging on the national scene only in March 2006 when he led a broad opposition rally to protest against the government of Nicanor Duarte Frutos. In December 2006, Mr Lugo resigned from the priesthood to launch his presidential bid.

Several new political parties and movements were formed at the end of 2006 to support Mr Lugo's candidacy, but none had the network and experience of the traditional parties—the powerful Partido Colorado, the country’s largest party (which held power from 1947-2008), and the PLRA, the second-largest party (and hence the biggest in the APC coalition).

It was always going to be challenging to maintain the APC’s unity. Now that it has frayed, Mr Lugo may find it difficult to stand up to those who oppose him and his policies. He campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, and also pledged to implement land reform and other measures to address the plight of the poor.

Furthermore, in Paraguay there is deep disappointment in the president’s performance, as he is perceived as having little understanding of politics and little ability to negotiate political agreements. Instead, he seems to deal with problems by withdrawing and meditating (to the great dismay of his aides) or by travelling a lot. In the latest episode, President Lugo initially was prepared to take a plane with President Cristina Fernández of Argentina to accompany Honduras’s deposed President Manuel Zelaya on his attempted (but ultimately frustrated) return to Honduras in early July.

Could Lugo be unseated?

These difficulties (along with Mr Lugo’s other troubles, such as the recent scandals involving a series of paternity suits against him) raise the question of whether he might be removed, either legally or by force.

The idea of getting rid of Mr Lugo sounds appealing to some. Indeed, support for something of the sort was implied when on July 9th two Unace senators issued separate statements backing the coup in Honduras. Despite widespread criticism, Mr Oviedo did not issue a disclaimer, strongly suggesting that this is the agreed position of his party. Moreover, the Supreme Court is very corrupt and could easily be bought off by the highest bidders, including those who might be determined to oust the president.

However, an overthrow à la Honduras is highly unlikely for a number of reasons. In recent years the armed forces have been greatly institutionalised, especially since Mr Oviedo was expelled, and they are unlikely to mastermind or support an institutional rupture. Also, the PLRA does not support military intervention in domestic politics. Finally, Mr Lugo is not as close to Venezuela’s radical president, Hugo Chávez, as it seems (by contrast, Honduras’s opposition grew progressively worried as Mr Zelaya became closer to Mr Chávez). Recently, the new head of Petropar (the state-owned petroleum enterprise) stated that Paraguay would not depend for its petroleum needs on a single source (meaning Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela).

Impeachment of Mr Lugo is more of a possibility, although not in the near future. Unlike in Honduras, Paraguay’s constitution does allow for impeachment of the president. Thus, if relations between Mr Lugo and his political opponents became more fraught and they gathered enough votes in Congress, they could try to remove him through constitutional means.

However, though opposition forces have been putting obstacles in the way of Mr Lugo’s agenda, they have done so in a more passive, institutional way. In June, for instance, they postponed creation of a personal income tax law for a third consecutive year by overturning his presidential veto, and instead voted for an increase in monthly pensions and a doubling of wages for governors and departmental heads.

Their strategy so far has been to wait until Mr Lugo chokes further on problems of his own making before seeking his impeachment. Given Paraguay’s recent experience with impeachments—Congress voted out President Raúl Cubas in 1999 and nearly succeeded in removing President Luis Angel González Macchi in 2003—this course of action would likely generate limited domestic resistance and few international consequences.