31 Facts About Fernando Lugo

Fernando Armindo Lugo Mendez is a Paraguayan politician and laicized Catholic bishop who was President of Paraguay from 2008 to 2012.

Fernando Lugo was elected as president in 2008, an election that ended 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party.

Fernando Lugo was elected to the Senate of Paraguay in the 2013 and 2018 general elections, but failed to win reelection in the 2023 general election.

Fernando Lugo received his basic education at a religious school in Encarnacion, and sold snacks on the streets.

Fernando Lugo's family was not particularly religious; by his own account, he never saw his father set foot in a church.

Fernando Lugo's maternal uncle, Epifanio Mendez Fleitas, was a co-conspirator in the 1954 Paraguayan coup d'etat that helped bring Alfredo Stroessner to power.

Fernando Lugo's father wanted Lugo to become a lawyer, but at 18 Lugo entered a normal school, and began teaching in a rural community.

Fernando Lugo was well accepted by the community, which was very religious, but they had no priest.

Fernando Lugo said later that he was touched by that experience, and so discovered his vocation to the Roman Catholic priesthood.

Fernando Lugo was ordained a priest for the society on 15 August 1977.

Fernando Lugo was sent to Ecuador, where he served as a missionary for five years.

Fernando Lugo returned to Paraguay in 1982, and after a year, was sent to Rome for further academic studies.

Fernando Lugo came back to Paraguay in 1987, two years before the Stroessner dictatorship's fall.

Fernando Lugo was ordained a bishop on 17 April 1994, and received charge of the nation's poorest diocese, in the San Pedro diocese.

Fernando Lugo resigned as ordinary of the Diocese of San Pedro on 11 January 2005.

However, after Fernando Lugo won the presidential election, the Church granted his laicization on 30 June 2008.

Fernando Lugo jumped to the national arena by backing peasant claims for better land distribution.

The legality of Fernando Lugo's candidacy was questioned, because Article 235 of the Constitution forbids clerics of any religious denomination to hold elective office, and Pope Benedict XVI had rejected Fernando Lugo's resignation from the priesthood.

Fernando Lugo's swearing in marked the first time in Paraguay's history that a ruling party peacefully surrendered power to an elected member from the opposition.

Fernando Lugo became Paraguay's second leftist president, and the first to be freely elected.

Fernando Lugo was sworn in as President on 15 August 2008, saying he would not accept the presidential salary because it "belongs to more humble people" and encouraged other politicians to refuse their salaries as well.

Fernando Lugo initially named Alejandro Hamed as his foreign minister.

However, after the inauguration, which had been attended by President Ma Ying-jeou from Taiwan, Fernando Lugo stated that he had no plans to switch recognition.

On 18 August 2008, Fernando Lugo named Margarita Mbywangi, a member of the Ache indigenous ethnic group, as secretary of indigenous affairs, the first indigenous person to hold such a position in Paraguay.

The removal of Fernando Lugo was followed by demonstrations by his supporters.

Fernando Lugo's removal has drawn comparisons to the ouster of Honduras' Manuel Zelaya in 2009; like the ouster of Fernando Lugo it was defended as legal and constitutional by its supporters while being denounced as a coup across the Latin American political spectrum.

Fernando Lugo himself accepted his ouster, saying that any legal and realistic chance of reinstating him ended when the Supreme Court of Paraguay declared his impeachment and confirmed his removal, and the electoral court recognized Franco as the new president.

Fernando Lugo is considered in the polls as the best president in the contemporary history of Paraguay.

Fernando Lugo was elected as member of Paraguayan Senate representing left-wing coalition Frente Guasu.

Fernando Lugo was awarded the Order of Brilliant Jade by Ma Ying-jeou, the President of the Republic of China in March 2011.

Fernando Lugo continued his duties as president of Paraguay while undergoing treatment.