The operation of law enforcers is connected with the riots that broke out in the country after the Senate secretly voted for an amendment to the constitution, allowing the president to be re-elected for a second term.
Dramatic situations during Paraguay protest
The Head Of State Horacio Cartes, dismissed the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the head of the police of the country. Now the department is conducting an internal investigation. As noted, the party's office is far from the riots, the center of which was the building of the Congress.
Protests In Paraguay began in the middle of the week when the decree allowing the re-election of the head of state began to be discussed by lawmakers. Until Friday, all these actions were peaceful and the police were limited only to the protection of administrative buildings. The situation changed dramatically after the members of the congress by secret ballot allowed the incumbent head of state, Oracio Cartes, to participate in the second consecutive presidential race.
Protests continue, along with police reactions
Mass riots in Paraguay continued for the second day. To control the crowd police began to fire at people with rubber bullets and among the victims were two members of the congress, who were in the thick of things.
Horacio Cartes was elected president for a five-year term in 2013. In the course of the campaign, behind him were extremely powerful people in Paraguay and now they are interested to see if Cartes will continue to lead the country for another five-year plan. The opposition insists that changing the constitution for the sake of re-electing the president will override the fundamental democratic principles.
Paraguay: one of the rare countries
In Paraguay, the president is prohibited from being elected for a second term. Such a radical restrictive measure was introduced after the overthrow of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, who ruled the country from August 15, 1954, to February 3, 1989. Such norms once were in many other countries of Latin America, but the people coming to power first of all made efforts to abolish these norms and get more time at the head of the state.