Kirk Tyvela's The Dictator Dilemma

I read Kirk Tyvela's The Dictator Dilemma: The United States and Paraguay in the Cold War am writing a review for The Latin Americanist. I really liked it.

The “dictator dilemma” was often at the core of U.S. policy toward Latin America during the Cold War. U.S. policy makers professed commitment to democracy, yet commonly supported pro-U.S. dictatorships to advance U.S. security interests. The dilemma played out clearly in Paraguay, where dictator Alfredo Stroessner ruled by force and won elections with around 90% of the vote from 1954 to 1989. Kirk Tyvela’s book is a deeply researched and compelling addition to the literature on U.S.-Latin American relations.

You'll have to wait until later in the year to read the rest. But it's a great read.

One thing I liked in particular was his attention to Paraguayan sources. He used Paraguayan archives but only to the extent that they exist, which is minimal. That is the big challenges for future scholars, which will require close consultation with local experts of whatever country (and hopefully publishing collaboration as well). Are there untapped primary sources? The literature on U.S.-Latin American relations cries out for it.

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Impeachment in Paraguay (Again!)

Latin American impeachment is a no-confidence vote these days. I wrote about it for Brazil three years ago and then talked to Leiv Marsteintredet about it on my podcast two years ago. Paraguay is the most recent example, where Mario Abdo faces calls for impeachment over a controversial energy deal with Brazil.

"We are going to prepare the corresponding documentation for the prosecution of poor performance. We have to do new elections," said Efrain Alegre, leader of Paraguay's Liberal Party, the main opposition group.

Not crimes, or even high crimes and misdemeanors. Just poor performance, which is no confidence. In Mexico, AMLO called for the same and got it passed in the Chamber of Deputies, but it has since stalled in the Senate.

As long as the parameters are clear, this is not necessarily a bad thing, though the structure of a presidential system (especially with separately elected legislature) makes it a lot trickier.

In 2012, Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo was ousted through impeachment in a process of "golpeachment." If the path for removal is not clearly laid out, then it becomes constitutionally problematic. BTW, Lugo himself is in the senate now, and from what I gather his party has not yet decided whether to participate in the impeachment process. The constitution (from 1992) has not changed since Lugo was removed. Article 225 is the relevant part:

El Presidente de la República, el Vicepresidente, los ministros del Poder Ejecutivo, los ministros de la Corte Suprema de Justicia, el Fiscal General del Estado, el Defensor del Pueblo, el Contralor General de la República, el Subcontralor y los integrantes del Tribunal Superior de Justicia Electoral, sólo podrán ser sometidos a juicio político por mal desempeño de sus funciones, por delitos cometidos en el ejercicio de sus cargos o por delitos comunes.

"Mal desempeño de sus funciones" is "poor performance of their duties." The issue is whether such a phrase applies to a single policy you disagree with. Its vagueness is what made Lugo's removal so shady.

In other words, do Paraguayans now view impeachment as no-confidence, as a common mechanism for unpopular leaders rather than an uncommon and solemn occasion? Perhaps Lugo's own experience means the answer might be yes.

Abdo says he is ready.

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Democratic Fragility in Latin America

This New York Times article about the Paraguayan election caught my eye, especially one quote:

“I didn’t live through the dictatorship, but I know that life was good, and I think we could use another period like that,” José Rodríguez, a 19-year-old medical student, said on Sunday night. “There are too many thieves and assaults, and it wasn’t like that before.”

A young, educated Paraguayan says dictatorship sounds OK. Of course, this is one cherry-picked quote so let's look at the data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project. A 2014 poll showed some indifference to democracy (see p. 64 and around there for that data). Almost 40% think a dictatorship can be preferable, or they don't care much one way or another.

This is troubling and reminded me of the calls for military intervention in Brazil. We are a full generation removed from the end of military dictatorships and so they are much easier to romanticize. In some cases the people are young enough not to have been alive at the time. LAPOP's 2016-2017 regional report notes "a significant decline in the extent to which the public agrees that democracy, despite its flaws, is better than any other form of government" (p. 24).

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Context of the Paraguayan Presidential Election

This is a guest post.

Samuel Fishman lives in Paraguay where he teaches English with an English Teaching Assistant Fulbright grant from the U.S. Department of State. He graduated from Tulane University with a B.A. in Political Economy. He is originally from Baltimore, Maryland. .

This month marks the one-year anniversary of the political protests that reverberated through Paraguay on March 31st of last year. On that day, thousands of Paraguayans of all ages and political stripes took to the streets of the capital city Asunción and throughout the nation. Over the course of the chaotic night the national Congress building was lit on fire by demonstrators and a young protester was shot and killed by police. In spite of the violence however, over the course of this year the protests have showed themselves to have a number of durable effects, most notably a dramatic increase in youth political involvement and the strengthening of local independent media outlets. These two effects will be critical factors when Paraguayans go to the polls this Sunday to choose their next president.

The demonstrations were a response to a proposed constitutional amendment to allow Presidents to seek re-election, which is verboten by the national constitution. Opposition to the amendment stemmed from two objections, once substantive and one procedural. South America’s longest continuous dictatorship ended in Paraguay in 1989, so Paraguayans remain skeptical of any strengthening of executive power. On the procedural side, the amendment (enmienda) emerged from a secret closed-doors session of the Paraguayan Senate, and received support from traditional bitter political rivals from the two largest political parties. These strange bedfellows were seen as cooperating for self-serving political strategy; both parties stand to gain from extended term limits.

However, it appears that backlash to the enmienda triggered some positive changes. Historically, levels of youth engagement in Paraguayan politics have been low. A recent survey by the Centro de Información y Recursos para elDesarrollo showed that thirty-four percent of respondents believe many young people do not vote due to a lack of interest in politics and elections. Yet, a series of growing youth mobilization efforts following the enmienda suggests March 31st marked a turning point of sorts. Ever since, the streets have flooded with massive youth-led non-violent demonstrations to raise awareness for women's rights, LGBT rights, the environment, and other progressive causes. Notably, these events often unite trabajdores, empleadas, universitarios, campesinos and many disparate groups into broad, inclusive coalitions.

Clearly, the enmienda counter-protests spurred increased youth political engagement. However, other parts of civil society were also affected, namely, the media. The mainstream Paraguayan media has long been dominated by a handful of brazenly partisan newspapers, some of the largest of which are owned by the outgoing multibillionaire President Horacio Cartes. As the night´s events unfolded, citizens spurned traditional media outlets and increasingly turned to social media and independent media for crucial real time information. As I huddled with a group of university students, they ignored the talking heads blaring from a nearby car radio, and refreshed Twitter for updates. On the other hand, alternative media outlets were thrust into the spotlight with innovative coverage techniques. These sources racked up tens of thousands of views with Facebook Live streams of Congressional debate, shot on personal cell phones. Online streams of the burning Congress building and bloodied opposition politicians immediately went viral, dramatically increasing the viewership of independent media outlets.

Throughout Latin America, as nations have transitioned from dictatorships to democracies, many have struggled with “flexible” term limits for heads of state. A series of countries including Venezuela, Bolivia, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have lifted presidential term limits. In Paraguay however, citizen outcry was strong enough that the controversial enmienda was retracted and the executive term limit remains in force. When Paraguayans go to the polls this Sunday to choose their next president, the politically empowered Paraguayan youth and the strengthened independent media will play a critical role. University students are organizing on-campus debates between candidates while new media sources are using YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp memes, and other web platforms to broadcast information about the election directly to voters. While the enmienda project itself failed, one year later its political legacy later remains strong. These two factors, youth involvement and independent media, could play a deciding role in this Sunday’s presidential election and the future of Paraguayan politics.

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Fernando Lugo Trying a Comeback

Fernando Lugo, who was ousted in a shady 2012 impeachment (I discussed that here), now wants to come back to the presidency. He is currently a senator and his supporters are pushing for a constitutional amendment (through a referendum process) to allow his return. This comes after he said just last year that he did not like the idea of constitutional reforms aimed at a particular person.

Meanwhile, Lugo went to the hospital for a routine check-up and then was admitted with no explanation. He has originally planned to be an observer for Ecuador's presidential election.

The Paraguayan oligarchy has a firm grip on politics and I would have to imagine it would find ways to block this process.

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Corruption in Paraguay

The other day I met Allison Braden, a recent college graduate who is interested in Latin America. She just published a piece in War is Boring about corruption in Paraguay. Not surprisingly, it is not an uplifting story.

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Election in Paraguay

I'm quoted in this Associated Press story on the Paraguayan presidential election, really just giving the big picture view. The essential point is that this election will allow the region to say they've moved on from the Fernando Lugo controversy. Paraguay can then participate in Mercosur and Unasur. It's like Mitt Romney's Etch-A-Sketch statement.

This is just like Honduras. The elites who overthrew Mel Zelaya were correctly confident that just having an election would calm everything down. Even Venezuela and Brazil moved on.

There was a brief experiment with tentative liftism in Paraguay, and elites closed ranks to end it. Now the party of Alfredo Stroessner will likely come back, and the new president may well be a drug trafficking homophobe. Back to "normal."

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Media and blogging

I'm quoted in this Brazilian paper's article on Paraguayan President Federico Franco's popularity. I never spoke to the reporter, who must have read a blog post. This happens periodically, and I think it's great because it reflects a goal of this blog, which is to connect academia and the broader world. It actually works better than an interview in some ways because I am writing precisely what I mean rather than answering questions off the top of my head. Quote away!

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Whitewashing Paraguay

Unasur named a special committee to write a report on the Paraguayan situation, and it will apparently be released tomorrow. Do not expect much:

“What we all wish and are working for, is the quickest possible re-integration of Paraguay to Unasur, once the minimum democratic conditions have been compiled with”, said the Peruvian chancellor.

Translation: we will make some statements but not to worry. Hold your April 2013 elections and we will forget about it. P.S. Venezuela says muchísimas gracias to the Paraguayan right since it paved the way to Mercosur membership.

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From president to legislator

Fernando Lugo says he might run for president in the next election. Or maybe not. Some people are looking into it and he's not sure. Some say yes, some say no. Could be he runs for senate, and he's asking around on that. He's not sure. He'll get back to you.

That made me think of José Manuel Zelaya, who says he's running for Congress in November primaries for the 2013 elections. His wife says she is running for president, but that is another story.

I would love to do some research on former Latin American presidents going into Congress, which has a long history. Given the reality of strong presidentialism, the reasons are not immediately apparent. Why go from very powerful to barely--or at least much less--powerful? Yet strong presidents like Chile's Arturo Alessandri did so.

Lugo and Zelaya present a real twist, given how they were removed. That reminds me of Fernando Collor, who was legitimately impeached but came back as an elected senator.

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International influence in Paraguay

Mark Weisbrot gets all of this almost exactly wrong. His argument is that all of Latin America sees Fernando Lugo's removal as a threat to the region, but it occurred because of U.S. influence.

The US has lost most of its influence in the vast majority of the Americas over the past decade. It is only a matter of time before even poor countries like Honduras and Paraguay gain their rights to democracy and self-determination.

If you want to blame an international actor, then you would need to point much more at Brazil. The U.S. does not care about Paraguay. U.S.-Paraguayan relations were not strained (for example, see this very complimentary Congressional Research Service report from 2010), and it makes no difference to the U.S. who is in power (remember that there were even periodic flaps with Colorado president Nicanor Duarte). The impeachment and removal had enough of a democratic veneer for the U.S. to ignore it. Unless you believe conspiracy theories about George W. Bush buying land in Paraguay to escape just like Nazis did in Argentina, in which case I can't help you.

But Brazil is a different story. It wields much more clout than the United States in Paraguay, and had the opportunity to act quickly and decisively. Instead, Dilma Rousseff made clear from the beginning that she would wait and see, then ultimately helped insure that Mercosur did not impose sanctions. In other words, in practice her response was not much different from Barack Obama even if her rhetoric was more pro-democracy. The irony is that Weisbrot makes a point about the decreased influence of the U.S., while not seeing the implication that it has led to more Brazilian influence. And the PT is not committed to democracy abroad, so the reduction of U.S. influence does not necessarily mean more democracy.

I understand the natural instinct to look toward Washington, but doing so exclusively means losing sight of critical regional changes. If we want to understand the future of democracy in Latin America, then we need to probe how far Latin American governments are willing to sacrifice to make it work.

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Paraguay on radio

I got up bright and early this morning to go on WBAI radio in New York City for the Wake Up Call show with Felipe Luciano to talk about Paraguay. Of particular interest was the other guest, Kregg Hetherington, who is an anthropology professor at Dalhousie University. He has a book on rural politics in Paraguay, so knew much more than me about the ins and outs of the rural problem there. One point he made is how Fernando Lugo was barely even touching the basic economic power structure, but even connecting himself in any way to the countryside made him suspect.

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Weakness of democracy

Latinobarómetro has a really cool "Informe Flash" about Paraguay with polling data. What you see is a sense of impossibly high expectations for Fernando Lugo. A sharp spike in confidence dropped very quickly. By 2011 popular confidence in all institutions went back to previous low levels.

Further, since 2000 there have been 14 presidential crises involving a change of president. That is a depressingly high number, underlining what I told Adam Isacson earlier today in a Washington Office on Latin America podcast.

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Quote of the day: Paraguay

From Ultima Hora:

También urgieron a los parlamentarios que aprueben el proyecto de fondo de inversión constituido con fondos de Itaipú (Fonacipe). Todos estos proyectos son iniciativas del gobierno de Lugo, pero debido a las trabas impuestas por el Congreso nunca fueron aprobados. Como actualmente existe un mayor acercamiento entre el Ejecutivo y Legislativo, las expectativas de aprobación son mejores.

Nice. Everyone claims that Fernando Lugo is inept, yet the newly installed president starts by asking Congress to pass the exact same bills Lugo wanted. And while Congress was pissy before, now it will pass them.

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Franco the Fonz

The websites of the Paraguayan Congress are not particularly helpful. You would think that primary documents for such a major event would be available, but they're conspicuously absent. However, if you want to see Federico Franco doing his Fonzie impersonation, then it's the perfect site.

Ayyyyy!

Ayyyyy!

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Was there a coup in Paraguay?

Was Fernando Lugo's removal a coup? Loads of people, including him, have been weighing in on this, but generally in a pretty vague way (my personal favorite is "golpeachment").

Here is the definition from The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World. The entry was written by Claude Welch, an expert on civil-military relations:

A nonconstitutional change of governmental leadership carried out with the use or threatened use of violence is known as a coup d'état.

The "nonconstitutional part" is immediately a problem. At this point, no one contests the impeachment and removal per se, but rather the time Lugo was given to defend himself. But I have yet to hear Lugo himself say the process was nonconstitutional. As for violence, none was used. The army proclaimed itself neutral, but is not an apolitical body so we don't know what was said in private. However, Lugo has made no indication of a threat of violence (though after the fact he used that as an excuse for why he accepted the situation, which makes little sense because now he's calling for resistance). As he has said, though, for him it was constitutional enough that there is no legal avenue for his reinstatement.

Or take the definition from 21st Century Political Science: A Reference Handbook, Volume 1:

If a transfer of power occurs according to some legislative action or constitutional directive, a coup has not taken place (p. 125).

My concern is that "coup" become so broad and so vague as to diminish the term entirely so that it becomes "change of government I strongly dislike," as has occurred with "terrorism," which to many people these days means "people I strongly dislike." They mean everything so ultimately they mean nothing.

As is quite common, maybe we can add some adjective to "coup" as a qualifier. That's fine as long as it conveys the legal process and the lack of violence (generally meaning lack of military action).

Now, this leaves open the problem of what constitutes legitimate impeachment. But that's for another day.

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Hugh O'Shaughnessy's The Priest of Paraguay

I remembered that some time ago I received a copy of Hugh O'Shaughnessy's The Priest of Paraguay: Fernando Lugo and the Making of a Nation (2009). It is a quick, interesting, and entirely overly optimistic view of Lugo at the beginning of his presidency. He was going to exorcise Alfredo Stroessner's ghost, he was going to do the things no president had ever done, he was going to bring Paraguay into the twenty-first century. He was even going to embody Bartolomé de las Casas.

Alas, no. Still, the book is probably the most in-depth view of Paraguay and Lugo that you are likely to get in English. We learn, among other things, that Lugo was strongly influenced as a priest by a group known for not being too strict on the whole celibacy thing.

The book is a reminder of how much is wrong in Paraguay, and how much needs to be done:

--land distribution is obscenely unequal
--there is no real professional civil service
--there is far too little taxation
--virtually everything connected to the state is corrupt
--discrimination against the indigenous populations is rampant

Lugo resigned as bishop in 2005 because he felt he couldn't do enough to help people (trivia: his announcement to run for president came in the form of a letter to the pope). Trying to do more--even as little as he did--as president got him shoved out.

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Whither Paraguay?

I'm quoted in this AP story on Paraguay, and one of the things I mention is the fact that Fernando Lugo didn't rapidly receive popular support, such as occurred in Venezuela in 2002 and Honduras in 2009.  Lugo complained a bit but then just left. There were some protests on Sunday, and the Paraguayan press mentions newly formed groups that pledge to go to the streets throughout this week. So will there be large numbers and staying power?

As with Honduras, simply being in power gives the new government tremendous leverage. It just has to wait things out. Unseating Federico Franco will therefore take enormous pressure.

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Text of Paraguayan accusation

Thanks to a commenter for linking to the text of the accusation against Fernando Lugo. I should say I can't verify it 100%, and I couldn't find an official version at the websites of either the Paraguayan House or Senate, but it corresponds to narrative accounts at those sites. If this isn't it, I'd like to know.

This is quite a document, and even crazier than media accounts discuss. It argues that Lugo had a master plan to foment violence in such a way as to launch an "assault" and "install a regime contrary to our Republican system." It is openly intended to be insulting.

What's most undemocratic, though, is that it is extraordinarily vague. "Various" of his supporters, or "often times" without any specifics. Moreover, not only is almost no evidence presented, but the document says specifically that it doesn't even need any.

3. PRUEBAS QUE SUSTENTAN LA ACUSACIÓN 

Todas las causales mencionadas más arriba, son de pública notoriedad, motivo por el cual no necesitan ser probadas, conforme a nuestro ordenamiento jurídico vigente.

Who needs evidence if the accusers agree? That whole due process thing is a waste of time anyway.

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Regional response to Paraguay

The presidents of Argentina, Ecuador, and Venezuela have said they will not recognize the government of Francisco Federico Franco. Costa Rica deplored Fernando Lugo's removal (and offered safe harbor) but did not mention recognition. Bolivia, Chile, and Colombia expressed concern. UNASUR is sending a delegation. Across the ideological spectrum, there is a sense that the politically-motivated and rushed procedure was not a legitimate way to remove a president.

So will that matter? Unfortunately, the answer is likely no, unless governments are willing to strangle the Paraguayan economy or credibly threaten to do so. International relations is all about power, and strong rhetoric now can be massaged later. The outcry about Honduras in 2009 ultimately had no impact whatsoever. In fact, Dilma Rousseff's response now strongly echoes that case:

"What the ministers are trying to do is to create an environment that allows a less traumatic solution for democracy, since President Lugo has a mandate that expires in eight or nine months and cannot be re-elected," said Dilma Rousseff, president of regional powerhouse Brazil.

Translated cynically: an election is coming up, so let's figure out a way to stall until then.

Franco, meanwhile, said that "God and destiny wanted me to assume the presidency." He did not mention the boatload of corrupt lawmakers.

Colin Snider has a good discussion over whether to label it a coup. I agree with his assessment that it is an illegitimate way to remove a president, but it's not precisely a "coup."

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