Global IssuesPARAGUAY: Second Paternity Scandal Hits President
Analysts in Paraguay expected Monday’s media coverage to focus on an announced shakeup in the cabinet. But reports that President Fernando Lugo fathered a second child while he was still a Roman Catholic bishop hijacked the news agenda and tarnished celebrations of the first anniversary of his historic victory at the polls.
Benigna Leguizamón, 27, claimed that Lugo is the father of her son, who was born in September 2002. The young woman is from the impoverished department (province) of San Pedro, where the president was bishop for 10 years.
Leguizamón told the local media that she was prompted to come forward by the first scandal involving Lugo, in which 26-year-old Viviana Carrillo, also from San Pedro, filed a paternity case.
After that case came to light two weeks ago, Lugo publicly acknowledged that Carrillo’s two-year-old boy was his son, and said he would assume responsibility for the child, nipping the legal action in the bud.
The president also said he would not refer to the matter again in public a statement he repeated Monday after the new paternity claim emerged, saying it was a private issue and that his lawyers were dealing with it.
On Monday, the centre-left Lugo and his supporters celebrated his Apr. 20, 2008 victory in the polls, which put an end to 61 years of government by the right-wing Colorado Party.
His triumph was seen by many as ushering in real democracy in Paraguay, two decades after the fall of the 35-year dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989).
Although Stroessner was overthrown, the Colorado Party maintained control of the country for five more presidential terms, during the so-called transition to democracy.
The former bishop’s arrival to the political arena in 2006, as the candidate of the Patriotic Alliance for Change (APC), a heterogeneous coalition of social movements and leftist and centrist political currents, modified the scenario.
Known as the 'bishop of the poor' for his work on behalf of impoverished peasants in San Pedro, Lugo, a follower of liberation theology based on a 'preferential option for the poor' was not given permission by the pope to resign as bishop until just two weeks before he was sworn in as president on Aug. 15.
Leguizamón spoke to the media from her modest home on the outskirts of Ciudad del Este in the southeastern department of Alto Paraná. She said that if she did not receive a response to her paternity claim and her demand for DNA tests, she would take legal action.
Surrounded by her four children, she said that during the elections she had received economic offers to take the case to court, but that she turned them down, because she did not want the case involving her son to be manipulated.
In a statement, the ministers of women’s affairs and childhood and adolescence, Gloria Rubín and Liz Torres, urged Lugo to once again admit that he is the father of the child, in order to facilitate clarification of the case.
The two ministers called for transparency, and asked the president to take a firm stance, to show that the change promised by Lugo starts with him, as a man, as a citizen, and especially as president.
'Our commitment to the current Paraguayan political process has a mission: to strengthen, from within the government, the actions of all institutions, so that they include and bring visibility to the rights of women and children,' said the communiqué.
The ministers stressed that the right to an identity is fundamental for all children, and said their protection outweighs any other interest.
Rubín, a leading women’s rights activist, said she would not resign because that would be 'the easy way out.'
'Personally, I assumed this post to bring about structural changes. I’m doing my job, because I committed myself to the country’s women,' she said, adding that her ministry would do whatever is necessary to provide assistance to Leguizamón.
As part of the celebrations of the anniversary of Lugo’s electoral victory, APC Senator Carlos Filizzola delivered a message of support for the president, signed by the heads of the political parties and movements that make up the governing Alliance.
With regard to the latest scandal, Filizzola said it was a private issue and that what mattered was Lugo’s performance as president. 'That can be discussed within the Catholic Church, but we are a secular state,' he argued.
Nevertheless, the matter diverted attention from the cabinet shuffle announced a week ago by Lugo, who had implied that major changes could be expected.
Lugo announced the changes Monday: Senator Enzo Cardozo will replace Minister of Agriculture Cándido Vera Bejarano; Deputy Education Minister Luis Riart will replace Minister Horario Galeano; lawyer Humberto Blasco was named Minister of Justice and Labour, replacing Blas Llano, who will return to the Senate; and businessman Martín Heisecke was replaced by Francisco Rivas as Minister of Industry and Trade.
The shakeup gave the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, the main political force in the Alliance, one more cabinet post.
© Inter Press Service (2009) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service