More proof that sadly, democracy isn’t for everyone.
South American politics, just like Europe’s, swings back and forth. Several years from now some of these countries will swing back to the right after their leftisist economic policies fail.
Another Latin American success for the Bush/Rice team.
1) A former Bishop sounds like Liberation Theology aka Marxianity, but it turns out that the Pope gave him dispensation to take what amounts to a leave of absence--welcome to return to the Church when his term is over.
2) He had support from a whole range of political parties including the "right" party that has ruled since the '40s because of the widespread and firmly entrenched corruption everywhere. He's not taking a salary, is probably going back into the Church later, and so just might be clean enough to do the clean-up job.
OTOH his other big job is combating poverty which unfortunately usually means socialism which usually means greater poverty which then obviously requires even more socialism... He is admittedly left wing.
The really bad news: The swearing-in ceremony was also attended by Cuban Vice President Jose Ramon Machado, Iranian Vice President Mojtaba Samareh Hashemi and Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou. Paraguay is one of just 23 countries which recognize Taiwan rather than China, and there are reports that Lugo could switch diplomatic allegiance. Hashemi, meanwhile, stressed his country's ties with several of the Latin American states represented. Iran "is a good friend of Venezuela and today we have another friend: Paraguay," he said, adding that relations with Ecuador were also "developing strongly."
I think the best we can hope for here is that he actually manages to break the infrastructure of politically entrenched thieves (wish somebody could do that in DC) without too much socialist destruction and gets the hell out. He has 97% approval. Let's see what happens.
Meanwhile in the Bolivian recall which had the potential to blow away most of the non-communist resistance in South America, we got mixed results.
This is inevitable given the disparity in wealth on this continent. Unfortunately,the economic model adopted by the leftists is doomed to more failure and the poor will remain poor— or poorer.
Only someone stupid or ignorant would include Lula and Bachelet in the list with the others...