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New president of Paraguay seeks to rejoin Mercosur
Criado em 15/08/13 12h18
e atualizado em 15/08/13 12h26
Por Monica Yanakiew
Edição:s
Fonte:Agencia Brasil
Asuncion – Businessman Horacio Cartes takes office as president of Paraguay today. His biggest challenge is to rejoin Mercosur without offending his political party, the Colorado. The diplomatic formula to do so is to cement ties with the three other founding members of Mercosur, that is, Brazil Argentina and Uruguay, while keeping relations with the bloc’s newest member, Venezuela, at arms length. The Colorado, which controls the congress in Asuncion, considers the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Madura, a persona non grata.
Yesterday, Cartes had his first bilateral meeting with the president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, who went directly to the president elect’s home after arriving in the country for the inauguration.
After her meeting with Cartes, Dilma emphasized the importance of having Paraguay back in Mercosur, saying it was important both for the Paraguayans and the bloc. She cited as an example investments in regional integration projects, such as the Mercosur fund, that will finance a transmission line from the Itaipu dam to Asuncion.
Today, Cartes has meetings scheduled with the presidents of Uruguay, Jose Pepe Mujica, and Argentina, Cristina Kirchner.
As for integration policies, Dilma had one positive item to report: “He [Cartes] said he would go to the next meeting of Unasur at the end of the month,” she was able to report. The meeting is scheduled to take place in Suriname.
Paraguay was suspended from both Mercosur and Unasur last June immediately after its elected president, Fernando Lugo, was removed from office in an impeachment process led by the conservative political parties, Colorado and Liberal, that lasted less than 24 hours. Lugo, a former leftist Catholic bishop, was substituted by his vice president, Federico Franco, a member of the traditional Liberal Party.
The three members of Mercosur and the other 11 members of Unasur considered the removal of Lugo a “parliamentary coup” and although Paraguay maintained its economic and commercial privileges, it lost its voting rights in the organizations.
At the same time, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay announced that Venezuela would be allowed to join Mercosur. Up to that moment, Paraguay had vetoed Venezuelan membership with strong backing from the Colorado Party. The Colorados governed Paraguay for 61 consecutive years, including 35 years under the Stroessner dictatorship. Their rule came to an end only when the leftist, Lugo, was elected in 2008.
The problem Cartes faces is that at the moment Venezuela is not only a member of Mercosur, but is the pro tempore president of Mercosur. Rejoining at this exact moment would mean he begins his term of office doing something that will deeply anger his parliamentary base. For that reason, Cartes has said he will rejoin Mercosur only after Venezuela’s term in the presidency ends. An example of how serious the matter is is that the president of Venezuela, Nicolas Madura, was not even invited to the inauguration.
However, Cartes has left a door open for negotiations by promising to attend the Unasur meeting in Suriname. President Madura should be there, but as one of the guests, not the host.
Editors: Graça Adjuto / Nira Foster
Translator: Allen Bennett
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