Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez (born 30 May 1951) is a Paraguayan politician and laicized Catholic bishop who was President of Paraguay from 2008 to 2012. Previously, he was a Roman Catholic priest and bishop, serving as Bishop of the Diocese of San Pedro from 1994 to 2005. He was elected as president in 2008, an election that ended 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party.
In 2012, he was removed from office through an impeachment process that neighboring countries deemed a coup d'état. He was elected to the Senate of Paraguay in the 2013 and 2018 general elections but failed to win reelection in the 2023 Paraguayan general election.
Early life Lugo received his basic education at a religious school in Encarnación, and sold snacks on the streets."Interview with Fernando Lugo, by César Sanson for Agência Brasil de Fato"
Lugo's family was not particularly religious; by his own account, he never saw his father set foot in a church.
Priesthood Lugo returned to Paraguay in 1982, and after a year, was sent to Rome for further academic studies. Lugo came back to Paraguay in 1987, two years before the Stroessner dictatorship's fall. Lugo was ordained a bishop on 17 April 1994, and received charge of the nation's poorest diocese, in the San Pedro diocese.
Lugo resigned as ordinary of the Diocese of San Pedro on 11 January 2005. He had requested laicization to run for office. However, the Holy See refused the request on the grounds that bishops could not undergo laicization, and also denied him the requested canonical permission to run for civil elected office.Article regarding Lugo's laicization (in Spanish) However, after Lugo won the presidential election, the Church granted his laicization on 30 June 2008.
Political career
Lugo jumped to the national arena by backing peasant claims for better land distribution. During 2006, opinion polls published by ABC Color newspaper showed him as a possible choice for the opposition's presidential candidacy. Known as "the bishop of the poor", Lugo was seen in subsequent months as the most serious threat to the dominance of the Colorado Party on Paraguayan politics. Although he said he found the presidency of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela interesting, he made a point to distance himself from leftist leaders in Latin America, focusing more on social inequality in Paraguay. On 23 February 2007, a Prensa Latina article noted that the Paraguayan Interior Ministry offered Lugo protection because of the death threats he received during the course of his political activities.
Presidential candidacy
According to a poll in February 2007, he was the leading contender in the April 2008 presidential election, with more than 37% of the voters' intention. On 29 October 2007, he registered as member of the small Christian Democratic Party of Paraguay (CDP), which allowed him to file as a candidate.
The CDP became the core of the Patriotic Alliance for Change, a coalition of more than a dozen opposition parties and social movements which backed Lugo for President. Federico Franco of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, Paraguay's largest opposition party, was the candidate for vice president.
The legality of Lugo's candidacy was questioned, because Article 235 of the Constitution forbids clerics of any religious denomination to hold elective office, and Pope Benedict XVI had rejected Lugo's resignation from the priesthood."Impugnación de Lugo será tratada por el comité ejecutivo de la ANR", ABC Paraguay . However, on 16 November 2007, President Nicanor Duarte Frutos (also Chairman of the Colorado Party) announced that the Party would not object to Lugo's candidacy, In July 2008, the Pope laicized Lugo, rendering the question moot.
President
On 20 April 2008, Lugo won the election by a margin of 10%, gaining a 42.3% vote share. The Colorado Party candidate, Blanca Ovelar, acknowledged that Lugo had an unassailable lead and conceded the race that same night at about 9 pm local time. Two hours later, President Duarte acknowledged that the Colorados had lost an election for the first time in 61 years. Lugo's swearing in marked the first time in Paraguay's history (the country gained independence in 1811) that a ruling party peacefully surrendered power to an elected member from the opposition. He became Paraguay's second leftist president (the first being Rafael Franco, who served from 1936 to 1937), and the first to be freely elected.
Lugo was sworn in as president on 15 August 2008, saying he would not accept the presidential salary because it "belongs to more humble people" and encouraged other politicians to refuse their salaries as well."Latin America's left wing swells with new Paraguay president" , AFP, 15 August 2008.
He initially named Alejandro Hamed as his foreign minister. During the campaign, Lugo had suggested that he would switch diplomatic relations from the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the People's Republic of China, thereby depriving the ROC of its last diplomatic ally in South America. However, after the inauguration, which had been attended by President Ma Ying-jeou from Taiwan, Lugo stated that he had no plans to switch recognition.
On 18 August 2008, Lugo named Margarita Mbywangi, a member of the Aché indigenous ethnic group, as secretary of indigenous affairs, the first indigenous person to hold such a position in Paraguay.
Two of the main promises of Lugo's presidential campaign were tackling corruption and encouraging land reform. A number of initiatives were introduced to improve the lives of Paraguay's poor, such as spending on low-income housing, the introduction of free treatment in public hospitals, and the introduction of cash transfers for Paraguay's most impoverished citizens.
Health policy
In social policy, the government gradually improved the health system in Paraguay, with the aim of universalizing it. Through a presidential resolution, health services were declared free of charge for the entire population, including outpatient consultations, medicines, and high-complexity interventions in public hospitals across the country and in private institutions.
Education policy In the field of education, his administration expressed a commitment to public education, beginning the free distribution of laptops to primary school students under the One Laptop per Child program, a government initiative launched in 2008 aimed at promoting education in new technologies among public school students. His government program also included, for the first time, a school snack program administered by the respective departmental governments.
Economic policy
During 2010 and early 2011, Paraguay recorded record levels of economic growth, largely driven by exports of raw materials and the expansion of the commercial, industrial, and construction sectors, reaching historic growth peaks of 14.5 percentage points, one of the highest rates in Latin America.
Economic nationalism, the fight against corruption, and agrarian reform were his main priorities. However, in the spring of 2009 he lost the support of the Liberal Party and the majority in Parliament, and was unable to carry out the latter reform.
Itaipú compensation On 6 April 2011 the Brazilian parliament ratified the treaty signed by Fernando Lugo and former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on 25 July 2009, which nearly tripled the amount paid by Brazil for the sale of Paraguay's surplus electricity from the Itaipu Dam. With this increase, Paraguay would raise its annual revenue until the contract's expiration in 2023. It was considered one of the major political achievements of his government. Lugo announced the creation of a Development Fund to invest these resources in public infrastructure.
Political instability In December 2009, Lugo stated that he had been the target of several coup attempts and that he was threatened with a coup similar to that of July 2009 in Honduras. National media launched an offensive to remove him on various pretexts, accusing him, for example, of corruption. His own vice president, Federico Franco (PLRA), declared himself ready to assume power, while senator —also a liberal— said he should be removed within four months, accusing him of failing to maintain order in the country.
Federico Franco attempted to remove Lugo in October 2010, accusing him of violating the Constitution of Paraguay. While Lugo was in Brazil undergoing treatment for lymphoma, Franco—acting as interim president—ordered changes to the general staff, a power he assumed in that capacity. The threat of an impeachment against Lugo was raised several times before 2012.
The opposition also targeted the defense minister, former general Luis Bareiro Spaini. He had requested explanations from the U.S. ambassador, Liliana Ayalde, in a letter that was considered undiplomatic: during a lunch organized by the American diplomat, attended by Vice President Federico Franco and several political figures—including Colorado Party member Hugo Estigarribia—as well as a group of U.S. generals, President Lugo was reportedly insulted. Accusing the minister of a “violation of diplomatic customs,” and without mentioning the ambassador's behavior, Parliament—where both the Colorado Party and the Authentic Radical Liberal Party held majorities—initiated impeachment proceedings against him. In a press statement, the Ministry of Defense denounced “the operational psycho-political setup of certain sectors of the opposition,” arguing that the attempt to impeach Bareiro Spaini was merely a prelude to “the real final strategic objective: the impeachment of the president of the Republic, Fernando Lugo Méndez,” and suggesting the involvement of “foreign interests contrary to those of Paraguay.”
Curuguaty events
In May 2012, the Campos Morombí estate in the town of Curuguaty, located about 240 km northeast of Asunción, and owned by former senator Blas Riquelme of the Colorado Party,On 4 October 2004, President Nicanor Duarte Frutos signed Decree No. 3532 declaring these lands “of social interest” and transferring them to the National Institute for Rural and Land Development (INDERT), the body responsible for agrarian reform. was occupied by about one hundred peasants protesting the scarcity of agricultural land in the department of Canindeyú. After three weeks of occupation, on Friday 15 June the Ministry of the Interior ordered the forcible eviction of the property, resulting in violent clashes between occupants and police forces. During the eviction, 17 people were killed (eleven peasants and six police officers), an event that provoked strong criticism within the country and led to the resignation of Interior Minister Carlos Filizzola and police commander Paulino Rojas.
Police sources stated that officers were ambushed while attempting negotiations, and it was suspected that members of the Paraguayan People's Army had infiltrated the group of peasants. Other sources argue that the episode was staged to provide a pretext for Lugo's removal. Six months after the massacre, activist Vidal Vega, who had been conducting a parallel investigation, was assassinated by masked gunmen. According to Vega, “infiltrators” triggered the shooting, firing simultaneously at peasants and police. According to , former minister of social action, “the episode may have been prepared to create the perfect motive to remove the president. Despite public pressure, the prosecutor has investigated only in one direction: according to him, the peasants ambushed the police.”