- Fernando Lugo
Infobox President-elect
name = Fernando Lugo
order =
office =President of Paraguay
vicepresident =Federico Franco
term_start =August 15 2008
term_end =
predecessor =Nicanor Duarte Frutos
successor =
birth_date = birth date and age|1951|05|30|mf=y
birth_place =San Solano ,Paraguay [ [http://fernandolugo.blogspot.com/2007/12/quin-es-fernando-lugo.html Fernando Lugo Presidente: ¿Quién es Fernando Lugo?] ]
death_date =
death_place =
party = APC
religion =Roman Catholic Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez (born
May 30 ,1951 ) is the current President ofParaguay and the formerRoman Catholic bishop of theDiocese of San Pedro .Early life and history with the Church
Lugo's family was not particularly religious; by his own account, he never saw his father set foot in a chapel. However, his upbringing was emphatically political. His uncle
Epifanio Méndes Fleitas was a noted Colorado Party dissident and was persecuted and exiled byGeneral Stroessner 's regime. His father was imprisoned twenty times, and some of his elder siblings were sent to exile too.He received his basic education at a religious school in Encarnación, all the while he worked selling snacks on the streets.At age 17 or 18, against his father's wishes of him becoming a lawyer, Lugo entered anormal school , and began teaching at a rural community. He was well accepted within this people, who were very religious, but they had nopriest . He recalls that he was touched by that experience, discovering hisvocation , and so he decided to enter aSociety of the Divine Word seminary at age 19. Lugo was ordained a priest onAugust 15 ,1977 . That same year he was sent toEcuador as a missionary for five years. There he had the opportunity to learn about the controversialLiberation theology .He returned to Paraguay in 1982, and after a year, the regime's police asked that he be expelled from the country. The Church complied and sent him to Rome for further academic studies.Lugo returned to his homeland in 1987, two years short of the Stroessner dictatorship's ultimate fall. He was ordained Bishop onApril 17 ,1994 , and received the nation's poorestdiocese , in the San Pedro department. [ [http://www.brasildefato.com.br/v01/agencia/entrevistas/fernando-lugo-trajetoria-pessoal "Interview with Fernando Lugo, by César Sanson for Agência Brasil de Fato"] ] Following his presidential aspirations, Lugo resigned asordinary of the Diocese of San Pedro onJanuary 11 ,2005 . He had requestedlaicization in order to run for office. However, theHoly 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. [ [http://www.episcopal.org.py/comunicados/segundanotaalugo.htm Documento sin título ] ] Subsequently following his declaration of candidacy, the Holy See imposed on him the penalty of suspension from the discharge of the ordained ministry, but did not dismiss him from theclerical state. [ [http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0700644.htm Catholic news service] ] In July 2008, the Vatican reversed its decision andPope Benedict XVI accepted Lugo's request forlaicization . [cite web|url=http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=59958|title=Paraguay's president, ex-bishop, granted lay status|publisher=Catholic World News |date=2008-07-30|accessdate=2008-07-31]Presidential candidacy
Lugo jumped to the national arena by backing peasants' claims for better land distribution. During 2006, wide-spectrum opinion polls published by
Diario 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 the subsequent months as the most serious threat to the dominance of the Colorado Party on Paraguayan politics. Although he has said he finds the presidency ofHugo Chávez inVenezuela interesting, he has also made a point to distance himself from populist leaders in Latin America, focusing more on social inequality in Paraguay.On
February 23 ,2007 , a "Prensa Latina " article noted that the Paraguayan Interior Ministry offered Lugo protection because of the death threats he has received during the course of his political activities. [ [http://www.plenglish.com/article.asp?ID={754FE77C-C350-4C2C-B5F8-41779C905010})&language=EN Paraguayan Gov't Offers Lugo Protection] ]According to a poll released in February 2007, he was the leading contender in the April 2008 presidential election, with more than 37% of the voters' intention. [ [http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/14863 Angus Reid Consultants] ] On
October 29 ,2007 , he registered himself into the tiny Christian Democratic Party of Paraguay in order to get his bureaucratic habilitation to run for office. [cite web|url=http://www.abc.com.py/articulos.php?pid=368460|publisher=ABC Digital|date=2008-05-31|title=El ex obispo Fernando Lugo se afilió al Partido Demócrata Cristiano|language=Spanish] That party integrated a coalition of more than a dozen opposition parties and social movements, namedPatriotic Alliance for Change .Federico Franco , from the center-rightAuthentic Radical Liberal Party , Paraguay's largest opposition party, was his running mate.Even though on
November 16 ,2007 , the Chairman of the National Republican Party (ANR, Partido Colorado), then-sitting President Nicanor Duarte Frutos, announced that the Colorado Party would not initiate any proceedings to block Lugo's candidacy, [ [http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=54823 Catholic World News : Suspended bishop cleared as presidential candidate in Paraguay ] ] there is a debate going on about its legality, because Article 235 of the Constitution forbids ministers of any religious denomination to hold elective office, [cite web|url=http://www.servat.unibe.ch/law/icl/pa00000_.html|title=Paraguay Constitution|publisher=International Constitutional Law Project of the University of Bern|accessdate=2008-04-21] andPope Benedict XVI rejected Lugo's resignation from the priesthood. [ [http://www.abc.com.py/articulos.php?pid=388865 "Impugnación de Lugo será tratada por el comité ejecutivo de la ANR"] , abc.com.py es icon.] In July 2008, however, the pope downgraded Lugo to layman's status in order to allow him to assume the presidency without violating church rules. [cite web|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/world/americas/31brief04.html|title=Paraguay: Special Dispensation for President-Elect|publisher=The New York Times |date=2008-07-31]On
April 20 ,2008 , Lugo won the election by a margin of 10 percentage points, although far short of a majority. The Colorado Party candidate,Blanca Ovelar , acknowledged that Lugo had an unassailable lead and conceded the race that same night at about 9 p.m. local time. Two hours later, President Duarte acknowledged that the Colorados had lost an election for the first time in 61 years. Lugo became Paraguay's second leftist president (the first beingRafael Franco , who served from 1936 to 1937), and the first to be freely elected. Also, his 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.Lugo was sworn in as President on
August 15 2008 . He said that he would not accept the presidential salary because it "belongs to more humble people" and encouraged other politicians to refuse their salaries as well. [ [http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hqFLYrBs7ry_miqB_KSjyiqy2J_Q "Latin America's left wing swells with new Paraguay president"] , AFP, August 15, 2008.]Since Lugo has no spouse, he recently announced the designation of his elder sister, Mercedes Lugo, as
First Lady of Paraguay . On August 18, 2008, he namedMargarita Mbywangi , a member of theAché indigenous ethnic group, as minister of indigenous affairs, the first indigenous person to hold such a position in Paraguay. [http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/19/inauguration_of_paraguays_new_president_fernando]During the campaign, Lugo had suggested that he would switch diplomatic relations from the
Republic of China on Taiwan to thePeople's Republic of China , [http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/22/america/LA-GEN-Paraguay-Lugo.php] thereby depriving the ROC of its last diplomatic ally in South America. However after the inauguration. which had been attended by PresidentMa Ying-Jeou from Taiwan, Lugo stated that he had no plans to switch recognitions. [http://www.redorbit.com/news/business/1523297/taiwan_president_attends_inauguration_of_paraguayan_president/index.html]Blog
Lugo began writing a blog on the web site of newspaper "ABC Color" in March 2007. [ [http://www.abc.com.py/blogs/list.php?autor=4 ABC Blogs - Asunción - Paraguay ] ]
References
External links
* [http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/bishop/blume.html Fernando Lugo on Catholic Hierarchy]
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/world/americas/27paraguay.html Feb. 27, 2007 New York Times article on Lugo's possible candidacy]
* [http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/2686.cfm Feb. 22, 2007 article on Lugo from Worldpress.org]
* [http://jimjay.blogspot.com/2006/12/church-right-wing-shocker.html Dec. 30, 2006 Daily (Maybe) blog on background to Lugo's presidential bid]
* [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080421/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/paraguay_election Lugo Wins Election at AP]
* [http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0418/p04s05-woam.html April 18, 2008 article on Lugo and Paraguay elections from The Christian Science Monitor]
* [http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/?page=editorial&id=691&catID=1 "Rise of the Red Bishop"] "The Guardian Weekly", August 14 2008Persondata
NAME=Lugo, Fernando
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=Méndez, Fernando Armindo Lugo
SHORT DESCRIPTION=President-elect of Paraguay
DATE OF BIRTH=May 30 ,1951
PLACE OF BIRTH=San Pedro del Paraná , Itapúa department
DATE OF DEATH=
PLACE OF DEATH=
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