Paraguay President Submits to Impeachment

Ousted Paraguay president Fernando Lugo is interviewed at the Public TV Channel headquarters in downtown Asuncion early on June 24. (Pablo Porciuncula/AFP/GettyImages)

On Sunday morning Paraguay’s ex-President Fernando Lugo explained he had agreed to submit to Parliament’s impeachment to avoid bloodshed. Lugo was ousted from power on Friday after a hasty impeachment.

Earlier he had denounced the trial. “It is more than a coup d'etat, it’s a parliamentary coup dressed up as a legal procedure,” said Lugo on Paraguayan radio reported AFP.

The impeachment bid was initiated after recent incidents between migrant farmers and police over land left six police and 11 squatters dead.

Speaking Sunday at an early morning special program on public television, Lugo said that before the Senate trial on Friday Roman Catholic bishops came to see him and he agreed to accept the trial’s outcome to avoid further bloodshed.

Lugo claimed the so-called coup took place because he supported the poor majority in the South American country. Lugo was a Roman Catholic bishop and known advocate for the poor before seeking the presidency.

Following a trial that lasted less than a day, Paraguay’s Parliament voted 39–4 to impeach, citing Lugo’s poor handling of recent land conflicts involving migrant workers and police.

However, Lugo was left with little leverage when the Authentic Radical Liberation Party, part of Lugo’s ruling coalition and the party of his vice president, Federico Franco, joined up with the opposition Colorado Party in the push to impeach.

Lugo’s election in 2008 had ended six decades of rule by the Colorado Party.

On Friday, his supporters gathered around the legislative building in Asuncion, the capital, and tore down fences. Police were forced to fire tear gas at them, AFP reported.

Lugo called on his supporters to remain calm. “Today I retire as president, but not as Paraguayan citizen,” he said on Friday after the vote. “May the blood of the just not be spilled.”

Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay were not pleased with the impeachment and pulled their ambassadors from the country.

With Lugo gone, Vice President Federico Franco was sworn in Friday and began setting up his new government.