THE PATERNITY scandal surrounding Paraguay’s Catholic bishop turned president turned into a family soap opera this week after his own niece claimed he was the father of a 22-year-old friend of the family.
This latest accusation to hit Fernando Lugo follows claims by three women that he fathered a child with each of them while a bishop. In April, Mr Lugo admitted he is the father of a two-year-old boy, but he is fighting demands that he take DNA tests in the other two cases.
On Tuesday his niece said the Lugo family had long known that her uncle was the father of Fátima Rojas, now 22.
“All of us in the family knew that Fátima was the daughter of Uncle Nono [Lugo]. Let there be a DNA test. If she is not the daughter I’ll serve a sentence for defamation and calumny,” Mirtha Maidana Lugo told a local radio station. Ms Rojas’s mother refused to discuss the allegations.
Ms Maidana’s accusations seem to have been prompted by Mr Lugo’s attendance at Ms Rojas’s wedding last Saturday when he was one of the witnesses and also danced the first waltz with the bride.
Ms Maidana has been estranged from her uncle since accusing him last year of ignoring the family. She has also criticised him for failing to attend family weddings.
The scandal has threatened to undermine Mr Lugo’s image as a corruption fighter since it emerged that Ms Rojas’s new husband was given a lucrative government job without having to sit the required public exam.
Mr Lugo was elected president last year on the back of a promise to end rampant corruption, which became entrenched during six decades of rule by the populist Colorado Party.
In a press conference on Thursday in the capital, Asunción, the president tried to shrug off the new paternity accusation, joking that “in the female world, they say my popularity has gone up considerably” since claims he fathered children with a string of women emerged.
He said he was the victim of an “orchestrated campaign” by the country’s powerful “mafia groups” seeking to undermine his presidency, but refused to confirm or deny his niece’s accusation.
The president’s brother, Pompeyo Lugo, accused their niece of working for the Colorado Party against her uncle.
The various paternity claims have damaged Mr Lugo politically and since April he has had to contend with widespread rumours that leading figures in his own government, including the vice-president, are plotting to use the scandals as a pretext to oust him.
Earlier this month, he sacked the heads of the armed forces for the third time since taking office amidst rumours of an impending coup. He also faces a security crisis after left-wing extremists kidnapped a prominent rancher as part of their campaign for radical land redistribution. Such a reform was one of Mr Lugo’s main pledges as a candidate, but after 15 months in office he has little to show by way of legislative success.
He faces opposition from a corrupt bureaucracy, and his coalition’s small majority in congress is riven with divisions.