Impeachment or motion of no confidence? In Paraguay, only the votes are of interest

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By Fer­nando Martínez Es­co­bar.

In these days of street demon­stra­tions there is once again an im­peach­ment process un­fold­ing. The ac­cusatory li­bels seem to be ready and there are al­ready dis­cus­sions about what they con­tain and whether this is rea­son­able or not. How­ever, when it comes to a po­lit­i­cal trial in Paraguay, the con­tent of the facts, the ac­cu­sa­tions, or the ev­i­dence does not mat­ter as an el­e­ment to de­ter­mine the re­moval or not of the pres­i­dent. What mat­ters is the num­ber of votes in Con­gress and whether there is for­mally any or, rather, any ac­cu­sa­tion. The for­mal process is only to jus­tify the de­ploy­ment of the in­for­mal rule of the mo­tion of no con­fi­dence to re­move, in this case, the head of state.

There is no leg­is­la­tor who is un­aware of these two rules; the for­mal one of the po­lit­i­cal trial of the pres­i­den­tial sys­tems and the in­for­mal one of the vote of no con­fi­dence, sim­i­lar to that of the par­lia­men­tary sys­tems. In fact, that’s how it worked with Fer­nando Lugo, with Luís Ángel González Mac­chi (twice) and with Raúl Cubas Grau.

The ac­cused may be guilty or in­no­cent. All kinds of le­gal ar­gu­ments can be gen­er­ated and the lawyers will pre­sent in­nu­mer­able ev­i­dence, ac­cu­sa­tions and de­fenses. But, all this does not af­fect the ac­quit­tal or the con­vic­tion of the ac­cused. What re­ally counts are the votes in Con­gress. The rest is a for­mal stag­ing ab­solutely nec­es­sary for the in­for­mal rule to work.

So, in a presidential system, the fact that the Executive Power is accused must necessarily exist for the impeachment to proceed. However, this is not what happens in Paraguay.

Now, this does not mean that in Paraguay the sys­tem of gov­ern­ment is par­lia­men­tary. For this, sev­eral things are re­quired, among them, that there be a Head of State and a Head of Gov­ern­ment in dif­fer­ent heads.

But it is also nec­es­sary that the ap­point­ment of the Head of Gov­ern­ment be made by Con­gress. The lat­ter is what usu­ally gives sta­bil­ity to par­lia­men­tary sys­tems, since the Head of Gov­ern­ment is only the one with the great­est par­lia­men­tary sup­port.

This is why, in a par­lia­men­tary sys­tem, Con­gress can change the Head of Gov­ern­ment if he loses the sup­port of leg­is­la­tors, since the Head of Gov­ern­ment is also a par­lia­men­tar­ian and his power comes di­rectly from Con­gress.

Here is an­other dif­fer­ence from the pres­i­den­tial sys­tem. It is as­sumed that in pres­i­den­tial­ism the acts of which the Pres­i­dent is ac­cused must ex­ist and dis­missals can­not be car­ried out by sim­ple mo­tion of cen­sure, since both the mem­bers of par­lia­ment and the Ex­ec­u­tive Branch have le­git­i­macy of di­rect ori­gin in the pop­u­lar vote. There­fore, a pri­ori, nei­ther the pres­i­dent can re­move Con­gress, nor vice versa. Ex­cept through a po­lit­i­cal trial, in which due process must gov­ern to judge the acts of which the Pres­i­dent is ac­cused.

Hence the need for the stag­ing of ac­cusatory li­bels, since any re­moval of the Head of the Ex­ec­u­tive Power in a pres­i­den­tial sys­tem im­plies the break­ing of the orig­i­nal and di­rect link be­tween the peo­ple and their rep­re­sen­ta­tive. So this break must be jus­ti­fied to demon­strate its le­git­i­macy. So, in a pres­i­den­tial sys­tem, the fact that the Ex­ec­u­tive Power is ac­cused must nec­es­sar­ily ex­ist for the im­peach­ment to pro­ceed. How­ever, this is not what hap­pens in Paraguay.

As we said, in our coun­try, when it comes to im­peach­ment, it is not about prov­ing any fact. The sys­tem works as a hy­brid on the for­mal rule of im­peach­ment and the in­for­mal rule of the vote of no con­fi­dence.

So, al­though it is true that the events were de­nounced by the peo­ple in the streets and in turn for­mally re­flected in two ac­cusatory li­bels (one that ac­cuses only the Pres­i­dent and an­other that in­cludes the Vice Pres­i­dent), the main key to it will be held by the move­ment Honor Col­orado of Ho­ra­cio Cartes and, of course, the di­rec­tion of his votes will not be based on ac­cusatory li­bel, but on the po­lit­i­cal strat­egy of his move­ment with a view to party con­trol, the 2023 elec­tions, as well as ne­go­ti­a­tions with the PLRA and the rest of the par­lia­men­tary par­ties.

Cover im­age: Mega­ca­dena.com.py