‘Barring Electoral Fraud, the Opposition Will Triumph’ in Paraguay

[Judi Lynn]

Q&A: ‘Barring Electoral Fraud, the Opposition Will Triumph’ in Paraguay
Interview with Fernando Lugo

ASUNCION, Jan 28 (IPS) - The countdown to Paraguay’s presidential elections in April has begun, and the candidate for the Patriotic Alliance for Change (APC), former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, looks likely to pose a serious threat to the six-decades-old Colorado Party monopoly on power.

Lugo, 56, asked to be secularised (returned to layman status) by the Vatican in December 2006, after a decade of pastoral work in the northern province of San Pedro, one of the poorest regions in this country of 6.7 million people.

However, Pope Benedict XVI disapproved of his political aspirations, turned down his resignation and instead suspended him "a divinis", a penalty which means he cannot exercise certain priestly functions, but is not relieved of his clerical obligations.

Known as "the bishop of the poor," Lugo is strongly influenced by liberation theology, a school of thought which took shape in Latin America in the 1960s, partly as a result of the renewal of the Catholic Church at the Second Vatican Council. Recognising the pressing need for social change and social justice, it challenged the Church to defend the oppressed and the poor.

Polls indicate that he is the most respected and popular political figure in Paraguay, ahead of the other candidates by a wide margin.

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