MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Paraguayan congress blocks re-election attempt of an ambitious bishop-president
Paraguay's opposition-controlled Congress rejected a constitutional reform that would have let President Fernando Lugo run for re-election. The reform drive, led by Lugo's supporters, proved controversial in a country where many people have painful memories of General Alfredo Stroessner's 35-year dictatorship. Read full article
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Jul 15th, 2011 - 01:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0this repetitive and egoistic intents of leftist leaders to perpetuate @ power are getting very annoying.
Latin America is the last fifteen years there has been constitutional reforms to allow for re-election mandate. Such is the case of Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia and the indefinite reelection of Chávez in Venezuela. However, a similar attempt in Honduras led to a constitutional crisis with the impeachment of the president by the other branches of government.
Jul 15th, 2011 - 07:13 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Pitiful, pathetic, further evidence that Merocpress is an agency of British propaganda to the detriment of Latin America. Hides the coup in Honduras manipulating information and supporting the national security doctrine that approves state terrorism
There is a difference with Honduras. As far as I know, the constitutions of all other nations do not punish the INTENT to modify the “reelection-ban”. Honduras constitution does.
Jul 15th, 2011 - 10:42 pm - Link - Report abuse 0It's a great security mechanism to deny any gorilla and socialfascist.
“socialfascist”
Jul 15th, 2011 - 11:03 pm - Link - Report abuse 0When Argentina and Brazil ammended their constitutions so as to allow a presidential second-term, they were under right-wing leaders, Carlos Menem and FHC. Álvaro Uribe from Colombia also tried to reform the constitution so he could get a THIRD term as president. So stop suggesting that such ammendments are pursued only by left-wing power grabbers, will ya. This is typical of partisan folks who believe their team can do no wrong. But the fact is that anyone, from whatever ideological background, can be tempted to arrange things in his own favour if only he perceives the balance of power to be in his favour.
As for Honduras constitution: according to wikileaks, a US diplomat who was in that country during the whole affair, wrote to his American bosses that toppling Zelaya was clearly illegal.* So it is not clear to me whether Honduras constitution did indeed justify toppling a president in punishment for merely attempting a constitutional reform. Moreover, the new constituion, according to Zelaya's plans, was to be voted on the same day as the presidential election. Therefore he wouldn't personally benefit from the reforms, supposing they would have been approved.
* If it weren't, why then did his opponents bother to forge a letter in which “Zelaya” announed his resignation?
Just by way of general comment....... In the UK the government/Prime Minister could be re-elected indefinitely. However, in reality it doesn't happen because inevitably the voters seek change. Maybe it works because we vote for political parties, rather than presidents?
Jul 16th, 2011 - 07:31 am - Link - Report abuse 0I wouldn't consider Menem a right wing politican by the way.
Jul 16th, 2011 - 09:02 am - Link - Report abuse 0He's argentine, and as we know, Peronism dominates. So you are eiter left wing peronist or right wing peronist which is by no means compatible with right or left wing polititan in other parts of the world. Peronism does always base on state intervention. Currency parity with the Dollar isn't quite a rightist politic, huh? Politics in Argentina is an own microcosm.
By the way, I am no right wing, so it's not my team. Right wing politicans are harmful to our nations too, due to their dumbness and naivity, but I consider them a smaller threat, because their negative intentions are easier to locate and to fight. Unfortunately LA has still not found it's political balance, NOWHERE (well, maybe in Uruguay @ minor scale... and I wouldnt call their president rightist, eh?)
People from the most different stripes call themselves Peronistas in Argentina. There are even CFK critics who call themselves that. Labels don't matter in here.
Jul 16th, 2011 - 04:38 pm - Link - Report abuse 0CM's economic policies were in line with the Washington Consensus program - for example, he privatized companies and services, a sin for the Latin left. And it is not hard to find pieces on Argentina during the 90s that described it as a success story of free market policies. As for the dollarization, many adopted it in the 90s. BR and ARG did so mainly because that would help in bringing down hyperinflation. East Asian countries (South Korea, for example) also did that, though I suspect they were differently motivated. Everyone wound up regretting it sooner or later, but the pegging itself was at first supported by market forces. In BR, the only ones who opposed it were Keynesian and leftist economists such as Delfim Netto and Maria Conceição Tavares due to concerns about its impact on national businesses. Pegging may not be a right-wing policy - but the dollarization was definitely NOT left-wing either. Notice that CM did nothing to help national industries in compensation for the pegging, that is, he didn't, for example, raise trade tariffs. So the dollarization wasn't a indicate leftist/interventionist impulses. His privatization program also contradicts any interventionist stance on his part, as does his asking financial help from the IMF to stall capital flight, when he could have instead raised capital controls as Malaysia did. And let's not forget his foreign policy, which was undeniably aligned with the Western powers, as one would expect from a LatAm right-winger.
But this has nothing to do with my point: that right-wingers can also mess around with the constitution when they're in a comfortable position: FHC did that when he was popular, and so did Fujimori. Uribe - he, too, a popular president - tried that but was stopped by the Court.
Jul 16th, 2011 - 04:40 pm - Link - Report abuse 0And by the way, I find hard to believe that someone NOT on the right would engage in cheap demonization of the left, all the while ignoring sins from right-wingers. If you're non-partisan, try and adopt a non-partisan worldview too.
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