Dissolution of Parliament 5 May

On this day in 1640 King Charles I (obviously with an eye to future topicality as much as out of habit) dissolved parliament. This particular parliament was known as the Short Parliament because it lasted only three weeks. King Charles was forced to call the Short Parliament to raise money to fight the Bishops’ Wars, but parliament was more interested in arguing about grievances with the King and didn’t deliver. How different from the parliaments of today! In France, of course, things were, at that time, less revolutionary and it wasn’t until 5 May 1789 that the first meeting of the French Estates-General took place to resolve one or two tax issues. This meeting was a general assembly consisting of representatives from all but the poorest segment of the French citizenry and was the embryo of future French government. It had long been the practise that France raised the bulk of its taxes from the ‘Third Estate’ - the commoners - and this, astonishingly, was seen as a bit unfair (by the commoners, that is). Successive attempts at reforming the system had proven fruitless in the face of opposition from the First (the clergy) and Second (the nobility) Estates who were hardly taxed at all - no doubt the commoners predilection for eating cake had something to do with this. The assembly, predictably, ended in a shambles. Of course, one way of avoiding all this election fever altogether would be to have instead a coup d’état. We all complain about the politicians we have to choose from and a coup d’état removes all that uncertainty. The coup d’état on 5 May 1954 that carried General Alfredo Stroessner to power in Paraguay is a prime example. Although known, for several positive economic policies, including the building of the largest hydroelectric power plant in the world, Alfredo also granted asylum to numerous Ex-Nazis in Paraguay, including the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele. ‘Good old Alfredo’ was apparently so benevolent a ruler that he only killed 3000 of his own people during the 35 years before he was ousted in a coup. What a nice man - on the whole, I would prefer to vote.