Lugo launches fight to regain presidency

Politicians loyal to him set up an alternative government and Mr Lugo pledged to upstage Paraguay's new leaders at regional summits.

Mr Lugo's new stance marked a dramatic about-face from just two days earlier when it seemed he would go meekly into retirement after the country's Congress voted to impeach him.

Since then, he has received a flood of support from South American nations, including the Mercosur trade bloc, which suspended Paraguay from taking part in a summit that started in Argentina today.

Mercosur nations expressed "their most energetic condemnation of the rupture of democratic order" in Paraguay, in a joint statement issued by the Argentinian Foreign Ministry.

All three other full Mercosur members have reacted with alarm to Mr Lugo's removal, denouncing the fact that the Senate's impeachment trial lasted just five hours, giving the president little time to mount a defence.

Brazil and Argentina announced they were calling their ambassadors home and Uruguay expressed concern.

And Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that his government will cut off fuel sales to the country.

Venezuela had become a key supplier to Paraguay as Mr Chavez built close ties with Mr Lugo.

Paraguay currently owes Venezuela's state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela nearly $300 million (£193m).

The developments hampered efforts by newly sworn-in President Federico Franco to justify Lugo's removal and fend off criticism from regional leaders.

Before the suspension, Franco had said that Foreign Minister Jose Felix Fernandez would represent Paraguay at the summit.

But Mr Lugo has now said that he will attend the summit and will participate in handing over the rotating presidency of another regional bloc Unasur to Peru next week.

"I will not collaborate with Franco's government because it is bogus.

"It has no legitimacy," Mr Lugo said.

His former cabinet ministers announced that they were establishing a parallel government to continue Mr Lugo's policies and would meet on matters of state tomorrow.

"President Lugo will be with his ministers to take decisions and then inform what those determinations were," said Augusto Dos Santos, Mr Lugo's minister of social communication.

bill@peoples-press.com

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