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.
You never know. What they say and what they do can be quite different.
First off, I live in Paraguay. Sadly enough the Latin American political/historical memory is very short. Chavez (as well as Lugo) professes populist political strategies that have historically failed and had disastrous consequences for those they were supposed to benefit. However, where Chavez obviously has dictatorial tendencies and closely mirrors the definition of ‘imperialism’ (...Una ideología que pretende la expansión de un estado o potestad por encima de otros estados o comunidades a las que considera inferiores.) he attributes to the USA, Lugo actually appears to believe in his outdated principles.
CHAVEZ:
At present Chavez can be classified only as totalitarian; however, current legal reforms in Venezuela leave little doubt as to his desires to elevate himself to full dictatorship. While squandering billions of dollars for armaments and to project him into the politics of other Latin American countries, not only the “poor” but also the “middle class” in Venezuela are now suffering extreme shortages in food and medical supplies.
The obvious and very public intrusion into the politics of other nations clearly classifies him as an imperialist. He forcefully attempts to voice his personal politics at any upper hierarchy political reunion in the region (invited or not in some cases). The constant rhetoric about the USA being the ‘imperialist enemy to the north’ is simply the same old xenophobic political song and dance of blaming someone else for the fallacies of current and past governments to meet the needs of their own countrymen. It’s also always nice to have a pre-planned scapegoat ready if your own outdated policies yield the same results they have historically given (failure). Scream, “it’s their fault!!”
While Lugo’s body language at their San Pedro press conference demonstrated ‘possible’ discontent with positions expressed by Chavez, he said nothing. What was most surprising is that Chavez’s new campaign to impose censorship of the Press went over quite well with Lugo and he has already made steps towards its implementation. (Chavez’s personal security force went so far as to physically abuse two reporters with the passive consent of Lugo’s Paraguayan security staff.)
LUGO:
This passive consent or simulated inobservance (ñembotavy in local terminology) appears to be a practiced political trait in Lugo’s repertoire. He has used it numerous times over the months leading up to his inauguration when he publically appeared along side of and made political discourses jointly with “social reformers” who profess that violence is the only means to achieve justice. Several of these had pending detention orders.
When questioned with respect to this, Lugo stated “Is that so? I was unaware. Why don’t the police do something?” It seems hard to believe that an elected president would not have information regarding persons with whom he would be sharing dinner, pronouncing speeches and meeting privately with behind closed doors. When questioned, all of these have claimed to be long-term acquaintances of the defrocked bishop. In Latin America, do you think the police are actually going to arrest someone the president elect invited while they are at the event?
Lugo has made ample promises to redistribute land and his previous recognition of violent invasion as a legitimate form of ‘accelerating the legal’ process has lead to a state of anarchy in Paraguay. This appears to have been a clear strategy on his part given the amount of ‘invasion leaders’ he met with publically during the interim between election and being sworn in. Only a day before his inauguration did he finally state that violent invasions should not be accepted. Lugo then touted that private property should be respected as well as the right for every Paraguayan to own land.
The simple constitutional guarantee over private property should be enough to understand that every Paraguayan has the right to own property. What is in question here is the implication that people have the right to obtain property from the government freely, without payment, and that such property can possibly be expropriated from others on a simple whim or demand from parties who perform illegal actions.
While there are substantial amounts of land “illegally acquired” by cronies of the previous governments, these are not the properties generally persecuted by the ‘labriegos’*. The most persecuted properties are those honestly paid for by foreign investors. This is well inline with the xenophobic political strategies utilized since God knows when. Is it always easier to blame someone else?
*This widely used term irks me. General references mean ‘workers’, ‘country-folk’ or farmers. However, the majorities of these do not work, live in nearby cities, have other professions and do not know how to work the land in any case. They only look for the public handout of properties that they will then commercialize (at the expense of real taxpayers….). Laborious persons of all classes have historically excelled and become at least modestly prosperous in Paraguay, which is a land of many unexplored opportunities. To benefit these particular persons is a slap in the face to the honest country folk that have prospered due to their hard work and also serves to increase apathy amongst those that have honest upbringings and intentions.
THE FALLACY OF LUGO’S AGRARIAN REFORM MENTALITY:
While President Lugo may firmly believe in his agrarian reform as a means to alleviate poverty, he is only looking at the present generation. He once publically stated that the previous regime’s political strategy was to maintain the largest part of the populace “poor and ignorant”.
That is exactly what will be achieved by focusing on land distribution as the most important economic factor. The majority of the small Paraguayan farmers address agriculture with techniques similar to those of the Dark Ages and under conditions that would have brought joy to the hearts of the feudal lords. Professing that giving each poor family a lot of approximately 40 acres will improve their economic conditions is completely absurd. Most likely it will destroy the future of their sons and grandchildren.
If you give a man this amount of land and insist that he work it without machinery, technical support (most of the populace has forgotten how to work the land) and a proper marketing strategy, he will simply resort to what he knows best; have his children help him. This implies that to make the land profitable and support the family’s nutritional needs, the children will not attend school. The lack of education or training in other skills will condemn them to working the land in the same manner in which there father did, and so forth with their children. Agriculture based on hand-planting, hoe cleaning and hand-harvesting will only provide that the Paraguayans remain poor and ignorant for generations to come (or until a government with a more intelligent economic activation mentality appears). In short, Mr. Lugo is simply following one of the previous regime’s political strategies albeit with apparently different intentions.
It should be noted that the hundreds of thousands of small agricultural lots in Paraguay are possibly the source of the greatest areas of non or underproductive land. This is in sharp disagreement with the generally professed opinion that single landowners with huge properties are unproductive and help strictly for speculative reasons.
While agricultural cooperatives have had reasonable success in Latin America, the general Paraguayan has distinct difficulties in collaboratively working with his neighbors. Also, we have a small dislike in being employees (don’t we all). However, these cultural characteristics will almost assuredly hinder more comprehensive forms of support provided to the land distribution incentive. Numerous projects of international organizations have met with less than favorable results because of these traits.
While small agricultural projects can be very profitable when properly undertaken, at this point in global development they would not generally be thought of as an appropriate activity to be conducted by the majority of a nation’s populace.
Instead of spending extensive economic resources towards legally acquiring expropriated properties (not always the case), the new government would more wisely dedicate this money towards improved education and fomenting industry through both Paraguayan and foreign investment. Acquiring interested foreign investors as well as national is hard when judicial guarantees are publically disavowed by governing authorities. There are numerous extremely wealthy Paraguayans that prefer to invest in other countries.
As a developing country, Paraguay has a long way to go, but the insistence on ignoring the historical failures of certain strategies will almost certainly prolong the journey. As Mr. Lugo stated, “the struggle will be hard, but not impossible.” Why make it harder than necessary and insist on economic strategies that have a proven history of failure? The world continually changes. Failing to recognize those changes and the evolution of economic activities that will provide beneficial results now and for future generations will almost certainly increase or prolong poverty for those in need.