2 Paraguayan officials fired
Upheaval follows protests over efforts to allow presidents more than one term.
ASUNCION, Paraguay — President Horacio Cartes fired Paraguay’s interior minister and top police official on Saturday after the killing of a young opposition party leader and violent overnight clashes sparked by a secret Senate vote for a constitutional amendment to allow presidential reelection.
Dozens of people, including a police officer, were arrested Friday evening in demonstrations that saw protesters break through police lines and enter the first floor of Paraguay’s legislature, setting fire to papers and furniture. Police used water cannons and fired rubber bullets to drive protesters away from the building while firefighters extinguished blazes inside.
In the early hours Saturday, 25-year-old Rodrigo Quintana was shot and killed at the headquarters of the opposition Authentic Radical Liberal Party. Antiriot police with rifles and helmets had stormed the headquarters.
Before stepping down, police commander Crispulo Sotelo identified Gustavo Florentin as the riot police agent responsible for Quintana’s death and said he had been arrested. Later Saturday, Cartes announced that he had accepted the resignations of Sotelo and Interior Minister Miguel Tadeo Rojas.
Because of the violence, Saturday’s and Monday’s Senate sessions were canceled. “We will evaluate the situation on Tuesday,” said Hugo Velazquez, president of the Chamber of Deputies.
The protests broke out after a majority of senators approved the amendment allowing for presidential reelection, a move opponents said was illegal because the vote was taken without all members of the Senate present. Presidents are limited to a single five-year term, and the proposal would allow Cartes and Paraguay’s previous chief executives to run for the top job again in the 2018 election — a hotbutton issue in a country haunted by the 35-year rule of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner.
“My colleagues have carried out a coup because of the irregular and illegal manner in which they modified no less than the constitution,” Sen. Luis Alberto Wagner of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party said after the Friday vote.
The process to pass the amendment began Tuesday when 25 senators changed the internal procedures to speed up the vote against the wishes of Senate President Roberto Acevedo and other members of the chamber.
Acevedo, of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party, said that process violated Senate rules, and he filed an appeal to the Supreme Court seeking to have the decision overturned.
Political analyst Ignacio Martinez said the extreme reaction to the move probably is rooted in fears of another long-running government like that of Stroessner, who ruled Paraguay from 1954-1989 after a military coup.
The measure for a constitutional amendment allowing for presidential reelection was backed by 25 of the country’s 45 senators. The yes votes came from members of the governing Colorado Party and from several opposition groups.
After approval in the Senate, the proposal went to the Chamber of Deputies, where 44 of the 80 members belong to the Colorado Party. Approval there would require the scheduling of a national referendum.