Luis González Macchi
Luis González Macchi was president of Paraguay from March 1999 to August 2003, the president of the Senate who took the office under the constitution's succession when Cubas fled and Argaña was dead. The supreme court then allowed him to serve out the term rather than call an election. The country was governed for four years by a man nobody had voted for as president. His government of national unity, Colorados and Liberals together, lasted eleven months before the Liberals walked out. The four years were the worst economy since the 1980s. There were the recession, the unemployment, the peso crisis next door in 2001 taking the trade with it. The state's default was avoided by weeks. There were the two coup attempts by Oviedo's men, in May 2000, when tanks took the Congress for a night, and in 2001. The general himself was arrested in Brazil in 2000 and released. There was the Congress's attempt to impeach him in February 2003, which failed by a handful of votes in the Senate. The corruption was the reason. There was a BMW in the presidential garage that turned out to have been stolen in Brazil. There were sixteen million dollars of the central bank's money moved to an account in New York, and a state bank's funds diverted to a private one. He was convicted for that in 2006 and sentenced to six years, reduced, and then acquitted on appeal in 2009. He was convicted again on the New York account in 2006, eight years, likewise appealed. He was born in Asunción, and studied law. He was a professional footballer for Nacional, a labour lawyer and a justice minister under Wasmosy, and the Senate's president when the succession found him. He handed over to Duarte Frutos in August 2003 with an approval rating of six per cent, the lowest of any president in the hemisphere that year. He has stayed out of politics, the president who was there because the constitution said so and stayed because the court did.
- Lived: 1947 CE – ?
- Nationality: Paraguayan
- Roles: president, lawyer, politician
