The political trial to Fernando Lugo: the first antecedent of the soft blows in Latin America

The political judgment to former President of Paraguay Fernando Lugo may be considered illegitimate taking into account his process. An important factor is the rejection and fear of the ‘pink lane’ or ‘red lane’ (of the 2010s), a series of attacks by center-left or left governments, usually populist, totally repudiated by the traditional, conservative, Armed Forces and the Colorado Party of Paraguay. In addition, Lugo was the first president after a long period of Colorado Party governance since 1989.

Political judgment in Paraguay: the scope of poor performance of functions

In Article 17 of the Constitution date on judicial proceedings, whether ordinary or political judgment. These processes must be respected as guarantees the Constitution itself. Therefore, if in any judicial proceedings carried out Article 17 is corrupted, it must be considered illegitimate.

As for the reasons why Lugo is accused of poor performance, the first is the ‘socialist’ and ‘left’ youth act in the Armed Forces Engineering Command, held in 2009, considered at that time as dangerous, since they would be against the values of the oligarchic class. The prosecutor responsible for this cause did not present valid evidence, only that which broadcast the mass media and journalistic articles with criticism to the government. It is demonstrated at this first point that the present was not enough to adjudge the President an accusation as such, which would lack meaning without the corresponding evidence that Lugo actually participated.

The unfounded accusations against Lugo: lack of evidence in bad presidential performance

The third cause imposed was the increase of insecurity in the country and its inability to carry out sufficiently effective public policies to diminish or control it, as well as its denial to dismiss or dismiss its Minister of Security, highly criticized by the Legislative Branch during his term.

In fourth place, the President accused himself of having sent his representatives of the Paraguayan Foreign Affairs to sign the UNASUR Democratic Charter and not sending the project to the Legislative Branch (given the balance of powers) to discuss and approve the signature, so in fact the signing of the UNASUR Democratic Charter would not be valid within Paraguayan territory. By ende, Fernando Lugo is accused of having served as President in the country's external relations.

The most important and shocking cause of what was accused the Paraguayan President was La Matanza de Curuguaty. It took place in 2012 and was the turning point in the President's mandate, which generated such repercussion and as much social and international condemnation, which was the impetus that the House of Representatives had to approve the execution of the political trial. The INDERT (Instituto de Desenvolvimento Rural e da Terra) had required that it be intended for lands in Campos Morombi for agrarian activity, because there was no legal status that it was a private property and was illegally occupied. In the intervention, there was a massacre for these lands that culminated with the death of 17 people (campesinos and police). Lugo was accused of “ideating” the massacre to his benefit in order to generate internal instability and to be ‘friend’ of criminals. Here we observe a clear moral condemnation more than based on the facts, something that gives him sustenance to the charge. The impact of unnecessary deaths in that June 2012 generated social punishment and, in turn, a clear intention of legislative power to give this voice to society and find a guilty person who is condemned, in this case, Lugo. The evidence is catalogued as “public” based on the already widespread and seen, so there is also no legal support to support the cause.

The Attorney General Oscar Tuma stated in the Accusative Libelo that “all the causalities mentioned above are of public notoriety, which is why they do not need to be tested, according to our current legal order”. However, by not having presented evidence to any of the causes imposed on Lugo, there is a lack of legal support to verify that the President was guilty, something that can take away the probability of the accused of verifying his innocence. The lack of evidence has led to an overrun of the legal process established by Article 17 of the Paraguayan Constitution, therefore, I do not consider that the established causes are proven sufficient to judge the President for the poor exercise of his duties. Moreover, in the statements of the five taxpayers who have drafted the causes, the law or the article of the Constitution violated by the President is not specified, so the bad exercise of the duties cannot be sustained, but a judgment based on a social conviction.

It is menester to highlight the conflicting relationship between Lugo and the Legislative Branch since taking over the presidency in 2008. The president belonged to a majority-less party both in the Chamber of Deputies and in the Chamber of Senators, and by being [Paraguay] a pure presidential system with balance of powers, a disbalance of representation resulted in Lugo a great difficulty in governing. The opposition occupied a majority in the 2008–2012 period, so both chambers imposed certain barriers to exercise their power to the Executive Branch.

By little, Article 17 of the Constitution was violated by the Legislative Branch in several of its incise. The first incise violated was in number 8, which dates the fact that the person tried is entitled to “offer, practice, control and impugne tests”, which were not even presented by the taxpayers in charge of the cause. Therefore, Lugo deprived him of certain rights, among them what is stipulated in in in section 7: “Everyone has the right to prior and detailed communication of the charge, as well as to have copies, means and deadlines indispensable for the preparation of his defense in free communication”, something that was not fulfilled, because the accused had an absurdly agreed deadline (one night) to structure his defense after the charges were presented. It was also violated the most important incise of all, the 1. Fernando Lugo to feathers was granted him two hours to present his defense, denying him the right to presume his innocence and to prevent him from verifying his posture.

The international repercussion that had this trial may be evidence of exposure to the unlawfulness of the case to Lugo. The Organization of American States (OAS) classified destitution as a coup d'etat and immediately imposed sanctions on the new supposedly illegitimate government. In addition, Paraguay was suspended from UNASUR until democratic elections were held in which the people cleanly chose their ruler. It was less than a year before the vice president (who took over after the destitution) finished his term in April 2013. A high-level group was set up to monitor the country's internal situation. Lastly, Paraguay was also suspended from MERCOSUL, although it was a very politicized decision due to the strategy of some countries with left-wing governments who requested Venezuela to join as a member of the body.

Likewise, I allude to the errors of the Lugo administration that might have also been a sign of a bad performance and aroused discontent in the Legislative Branch. Each clarification that from my personal opinion as much as possible, since it based me on Article 17 of the Constitution to explain my arguments by which the process was not legitimate and was really an institutional coup. Fernando Lugo had several fallacies during his management, as any president. The society accused him of not fulfilling his electoral promises, of having ‘atropellate’ to the proprietary sectors and the powerful entrepreneurs, of having prevented the country’s economic development, nor executed quality redistributive policies (whose mistake could have been an indirect cause of the Curuguaty massacre), of having made strategic errors that provoked the homogenization of the Colorado Party and having eventually put it in its own counter. Although these may be causal of a bad performance of the presidency, there was no evidence presented during the trial, and the Legislative Power itself violated Article 17 of the Paraguayan Constitution, and the process was not carried out as the supreme law stipulates.

The 2000s’ and 2010’ had an international context focused on combating terrorism, and Latin America characterized itself by a rise of left-wing populist governments and a subsequent awakening and discontent by the right (as already mentioned, the rejection of the pink wing). In Paraguay, the destitution of Fernando Lugo can be characterized as a ‘Golpe Blando’ or a ‘Neo-golpism’. A “Golpe Blando” is an initiative that aims to provoke the political wear of popular governments to force some kind of “institutional” exit under the tutelage of these tactical powers. A new “the coup” characterized this time in Latin America, characterized by authoritarianism, particularly right. The two cases that warned the region were the destitution of Zelaya in Honduras (2009) and the political trial to Lugo, whose systematization caught the attention of the world when they distilled Dilma Rousseff in Brazil (2016). These “coups” do not have the characteristics of the 20th century coups of Latin America, which had a military civic character and loaded with violence and direct usurpation of power. Instead, the institutional coups of the 21st century have the strategy of seeking more or less legal circumstances to reach power, removing the President in the only valid way in a presidentialism, political judgment.

It is proven that in several countries the conservative sectors (such as the Colorado Party) are unable to live together and co-exist with the progressive, whose economic policies are often very opposite to the right. Fernando Lugo had an almost crushed electoral victory, leading to the Colorado Party the continuity in the power that was almost twenty years ago. The economic benefit of these sectors was then interrupted by the arrival of Lugo to the presidency, and its policies had progressive orientation and favoring the popular sectors. The evidence presented in the trial could be extracted from the media, as they were controlled by the most powerful economic sectors, who wanted to reach power by distilling the president. Fernando Lugo entered the hegemony of entrepreneurial guides, which would increase his power if he progressed on a technological and productive level, something that with this mandate was not happening.

It can also be considered that a “neo-golpism” or “constitutional coup d’etat” was also carried out in the case of Paraguay, a formally less virulent modality, headed by civilians (with implicit support or explicit complicity of the military), which aims to violate the constitution, but preserving a certain institutionality. In other words, intentionally sectors of the right Paraguayan (or simply anti-progresists) provoked conditions for Lugo to be seen as the cause of the social instability experienced in 2012, although it implied the violation of the Constitution. Lugo may not have exercised direct interference over the situations in which he accuses him, which is explained by the absence of valid evidence presented by the taxpayers in the development of the trial.

In short, the Paraguayan right and the Colorado Party, eager for power and resentment for not being favored by the President’s economic policy, created a kind of ‘perfect warfare’ for Lugo to be socially condemned, and be the society itself that supports the president’s destitution. This social factor led to an emptiness of power and a break of legitimacy for the President.

It seems a sinister intention of desire for power, an inability to oppose coexisting or waiting for Lugo's mandate to end. The creation of this ‘perfect twist’ that I mentioned, was intended by the opposition to make clear who has the power and ‘constitutionally’ the ‘outsider’ that broke with his ininterrupted twenty years of mandates. It was this "legal" option to which the sectors of the right were instead of resorting to force, the latter being condemned by international institutions since the end of the 20th century. However, it was so obvious the illegality of this trial, which condemned it internationally and was qualified as an institutional coup, the new phenomenon of soft blows that now characterizes Latin America.