Fernando Lugo

Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez (* May 30, 1951 in San Solano, Department of Itapúa, Paraguay ) was dated August 15, 2008 to June 22, 2012 President of Paraguay. From 1994 to 2005 he was bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Pedro in the impoverished center of the country.

Education and Career

Fernando Lugo was born in the far south of Paraguay in San Solano in the district of San Pedro del Paraná, 210 kilometers southeast of the capital Asunción. His parents, Guillermo Lugo Méndez Fleitas and Maximina, suffered reprisals of the Stroessner regime; Epifanio Méndez Fleitas his uncle, an intellectual and a politician of the ruling party Partido Colorado, fell from grace in 1956 and went into exile in Uruguay. Three brothers of Lugo were tortured, arrested his father several times.

Lugo began his schooling in Encarnación, the border town with Argentina, and worked in his early years as an elementary school teacher. After studying theology at the Catholic University in Asunción, he was ordained a priest in 1977. As a missionary of the Order of the Divine Word Missionaries, he was shortly thereafter for five years to Ecuador, where he worked as a country pastor and teacher in Guaranda and worked with Leonidas Proaño, who was known as the " bishop of the poor". After returning to Paraguay, referred him 1983 Stroessner dictatorship of the country; until his return in 1987 he went to live in exile in Rome, where he studied sociology at the Gregorian University. In 1994 he became bishop of San Pedro, the poorest and most troubled region of Paraguay.

Political career

As of the time incumbent President Nicanor Duarte Frutos was trying to enforce a constitutional amendment re-election, Lugo is the emerging protest movement joined in 2005. Given his political ambitions, he joined in the same year returned as a full professor of the Diocese of San Pedro and asked in December 2006, the Holy See to laicization. The Congregation for Bishops summoned that he remain in the Episcopate, but released him from the related rights and obligations. The resignation of the episcopal office was required to run for president, because it is prohibited Paraguayan church officials according to Article 235 paragraph 5 of the Constitution to be president or vice president and it is also prohibited in the ecclesiastical law for clerics to take over political office. The political work Lugo understands a word of Pope Pius XI. as " the highest form of charity ." End of July 2008, Pope Benedict XVI. the request for laicization Lugo's place and gave for the first time in the history of the Church a bishop to the lay state. After the beginning of 2009 several affairs with younger women Lugo were known, from which at least one child has emerged, said Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano, Lugo non- celibate life is the Nunciature has long been known and have been the real reason for Lugo's birth.

The "Patriotic Alliance for Change " ( Alianza para el Cambio Patriótica APC), a broad coalition of nine parties and trade unions and peasant movements, certain Lugo before the presidential election on 20 April 2008 its candidate. This election decided Lugo with 40.8 percent of the vote; he distanced while the former Minister of Education Blanca Ovelar, the candidate of the ruling Colorado Party for 61 years, ten percentage points. Lugo was sworn in on 15 August 2008 as president, Federico Franco appointed by the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico vice-president. The position of the Primera Dama ( First Lady ), was clothed by the sister of Fernando Lugo, Lugo Méndez de Mercedes Maidana.

On 15 June 2012, came into Curuguaty in the department of Canindeyú to a violent confrontation between police and squatters with at least 17 dead, including six police officers. Lugo was made ​​politically responsible for the incident, after which the House of Representatives June 21, 2012 filed an impeachment complaint. The Senate of Paraguay approved only one day later with 39:4 votes of impeachment, Lugo filed a lawsuit in the Supreme Court is pending.

Lugo accepted his dismissal by parliament, but looked at the process more than a " coup d'etat ". Lugo's lawyers announced plans to apply for a review of impeachment by the Supreme Court Paraguyas and by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The Organization of American States criticized the impeachment as " a little hasty ," a spokesman for the Union of South American Nations regarded the operations as a threat to the democratic order. Lugo's successor as president was the former Vice President Federico Franco.

Positions

Fernando Lugo sees its roots in liberation theology and is considered as an advocate for the underprivileged and disenfranchised. For this reason it is sometimes - not least by his political opponents - compared with the left President Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales. Lugo himself, however, expects to " the political center ", and distances itself from programmatic radicalism. Social scientists of the country characterize him as a man, the personality cult and Messianism " against " and knows " how to bring together people and negotiating compromises ." Lugo defends private property and calls for an economic system that is in place for both the private and state enterprises.

Among the " major axes " of his policy he counted before choosing housing, the introduction of a universal health care system, education reform and the construction of roads. In the fight against poverty, he is committed to a comprehensive land reform, which will serve to redistribute and justice; date control in Paraguay 5 percent of the population, 90 percent of the productive terrain. In addition, Lugo wants to further reduce slash and burn and the massive use of plant toxins.

He announced to want to renegotiate with its neighbors Brazil and Argentina, the price of energy supplies from the Itaipu hydroelectric power plants and Yacyretá in order to improve revenue for social programs. His exact words were: "Paraguay can be not only a land of cattle, we need to transform it into a land of water energy, a developed country. "

Personal

Fernando Lugo is, as he acknowledged in a press conference on April 13, 2009, one son (born 4 May 2007), whom he fathered out of wedlock with the 34-year younger Viviana Carrillo. The love affair between Fernando Lugo and the young woman began, according to media reports already when she was only 16 years old. In Paraguay, the case triggered as part of public outrage. Bishop Ignacio Gogorza described the relationship as a " slap in the face for the Church."

After the announcement of paternity occurred in quick succession two other women, and Damiana Hortensia Morán Benigna Leguizamón Amarilla, to have a child with the claim to the public, with Lugo. Ms. Morán concerning the strained by her paternity suit was delivered to the President on November 11, 2009. A paternity test was initially rejected by Lugo's lawyers, however, since the first man, was married to the woman Morán at the time of conception of the child, would have to undergo such a test. In the case of Ms. Leguizamón a paternity test was provided, but she pulled her assertion mid-December 2009 for unknown reasons back. A few weeks earlier, the assertion of a niece Fernando Lugo, he had a full year-old daughter, causing a stir.

In August 2010, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was diagnosed at an advanced stage at Lugo. Chemotherapy was conducted in Brazil. He led his duties further restricted.

In September 2010, the results of evaluated in different countries paternity tests have been published concerning the son of Ms. Morán. All three studies deny a paternity Lugo.

Movies

• In the documentary South of the Border by Oliver Stone from 2009 Fernando Lugo is interviewed along with other provincial government in Latin America.