The fact Lugo was even asked the question at a presidential news conference suggests how much the former Roman Catholic bishop is suffering politically since winning the presidency last year, ending 61 years of uninterrupted domination by the Colorado Party.

"I can assure you as commander in chief of the armed forces that, institutionally, there is no danger of a military coup," he said. "There could be small military groups that are connected to or could be used by the political class, but institutionally, the military does not show any intent of reversing the process of democratic consolidation."

The question was apparently prompted by rumors that spread after people saw tanks headed from Paraguay's Brazilian border toward the capital. It turned out the tanks were simply returning after maintenance work in Brazil.

Lugo won election last year on promises to provide more resources to Paraguay's numerous poor, but his supporters are a minority in Congress and rivals have been searching for ways to remove him before his term ends in August 2013.

Last week, a majority of lawmakers threatened to mount an impeachment trial over comments he allegedly made in a poor neighborhood that some interpreted as a call for class warfare.

Lugo denied making any such statement, but insisted on Tuesday that Paraguay's politicians should be more sensitive to the vast majority who live in poverty.

He criticized an elite class that "sits comfortably in air-conditioned offices," while the poor "survive on just one meal a day if they are lucky ... without safe drinking water, surrounded by misery."

Lugo lacks the votes in Congress to make substantial changes in Paraguay, but even some supporters are becoming disillusioned by his failure to find ways of using the presidency to overcome political opposition.

"Lugo is apparently no statesman," Hugo Richert of the Socialist Convergence movement told Radio Caritas on Tuesday. "Lugo needs a political strategy for governing: On one side he says progressive things, but his Economy Ministry follows free-market policies."