By Marcos Pérez Talia.
Throughout the 20th century, the heads of Latin American executive powers fell mainly because of military interventions. After the third wave of democratization, which began four decades ago, the early fall of presidents continued to occur, albeit using other, more constitutional devices. This gave rise to prolific lines of research in political science. In this article I want to explore the early departure of Mario Ferreiro from the municipal executive of Asuncion, emphasizing the interference of justice, which is addressed by a current of Political Science as “judicialization of politics“.
In recent years, various courts in the region -especially constitutional courts- have issued rulings that represented fundamental progress in the protection of the rights of historically vulnerable groups. Many of these rulings were criticized because, allegedly, the judiciary did nothing more than usurp the powers reserved to the legislature and the executive. The point is that, as a consequence of this “judicial activism” resulting from the growing political role of the judiciary, the politicization of justice and the judicialization of politics increased in parallel.
This double dynamic (politicization of justice and judicialization of politics) is not something new, but its first appearances could be traced back to the eighties. It was then that the political parties, essentially the pro-government ones, conditioned and co-opted the conformation of the judicial bodies with the aim of obtaining political advantages for the future. Thus, whenever there is any political disagreement, the courts are called upon to reinforce the party’s reasons or, on the contrary, to frustrate decisions with which they disagree.
Even more serious is the case of political parties that, through a profound and historical co-optation of the entire judicial apparatus (courts, judges, and prosecutors), seek to resolve within the judiciary (for example, an impeachment of a president or mayor) what they could not resolve through the free democratic system of elections. This phenomenon is dangerous because it is carried out by judges and prosecutors who make political decisions, although they are safe from the mechanisms of political accountability. Moreover, it shatters the balance of powers, breaks the popular will expressed at the ballot box and negatively affects citizen confidence in institutions.
In the last few weeks, the early departure of Mario Ferreiro from the Asunción mayor’s office has once again made a great impact. He had been elected in 2015 to govern the capital of the country until 2020, although during the pandemic the National Congress approved the extension of municipal mandates until 2021. Ferreiro had defeated the colorado candidate Arnaldo Samaniego by more than 10 percentage points and ousted the ANR from the capital municipality for the first time since 2001.
Well known in Spain is the phrase supposedly pronounced by Vice President Alfonso Guerra after a controversial sentence of the Constitutional Court: “Montesquieu is dead”. More than a metaphorical use of the phrase, it invites us to constantly think about the Paraguayan case, who is killing Montesquieu all the time?
Governing any executive institution in Paraguay -whether national or subnational- entails serious risks if the winner does not belong to the ANR. So many decades in power have turned coloradismo into a party-state, thanks to its powerful and effective penetration in every institutional and non-institutional space in the country. If due to life’s contingencies the ANR should not govern the Executive for some period, the other institutions will almost certainly be, however, under the colorado orbit. The institutional ecosystem during Mario Ferreiro’s administration is a clear picture of this.
If we arbitrarily take the moment of Ferreiro’s crisis (December 2019), we see an eminently colorado institutional panorama. The presidency of the municipal legislature fell on Nenecho Rodríguez (ANR), while the national institutions presented the same logic: Mario Abdo (ANR) in the Executive branch; Pedro Alliana (president of the ANR) in the lower house; Camilo Benítez (ANR) in the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic; Sandra Quiñonez (ally of a sector of the ANR) in the Office of the Attorney General of the Republic. Only the upper house and the Supreme Court did not have at that time a president of the Colorado Party, albeit, both institutions have their own majority of ANR members.
However, the colorado institutional scenario does not necessarily mean an irremediable failure of the administration of a non-colorado. However, in times of disagreements and crisis (something to be expected in any political administration) the light at the end of the tunnel becomes excessively dim; even more so if it concerns a coveted institution such as the Asuncion mayor’s office.
The crisis, to use a euphemism, that Mario Ferreiro had with his former allies, in a context of governance with practically no municipal legislative shield (only 9 out of 24 councilmen were Ferreiro’s allies), was the genesis of his collapse. To better explain this, the Public Prosecutor’s Office immediately came to the rescue and charged without blushing any “Ferreirista” who came close. Mario Ferreiro, who did not read Machiavelli (or did not want to follow his postulates on virtue and fortune) preferred to turn the other cheek and resigned from office.
Thus, the almost 115,000 people of Asuncion who voted for Mario Ferreiro in 2015 were perplexed as Nenecho (councilman number 7 of the ANR) placidly completed his mandate… and on top of that, he was reelected in 2021. In democratic terms, it did not help much that, three years later, a Sentencing Court acquitted Ferreiro, leaving in evidence the poor work (second euphemism) of the Prosecutor’s Office, whose acquittal was not even appealed. To be fair, it is justice for Ferreiro; late, but justice at last. But Paraguay’s weak democracy, suffered yet another blemish.
The independence of justice and the separation of powers is a supreme good, as utopian as it is obligatory. When enlightened reason turned absolutism upside down, the aim was none other than to protect citizens from other citizens. Montesquieu not only thought of the separation of powers as mere institutional architecture, but also in terms of dividing power to avoid abuses through reciprocal control and surveillance.
Well known in Spain is the phrase supposedly pronounced by Vice President Alfonso Guerra after a controversial sentence of the Constitutional Court: “Montesquieu is dead”. More than a metaphorical use of the phrase, it invites us to constantly think about the Paraguayan case, who is killing Montesquieu all the time? There seems to be no doubt about the answer. Fears, founded by the way, arise when we think about how to get out of it in the future.
It is urgent to take the crisis of the rule of law in Paraguay seriously. Paraguayan democracy will not make quality leaps if the justice system does not improve. The 2023 elections may be a good place to start that change.
Cover image: La Nación PY