Paraguay, country, South America: The Stroessner Regime and Its Aftermath

The Stroessner Regime and Its Aftermath

Gen. Alfredo Stroessner engineered a successful coup in 1954 and stayed in power by repeatedly suppressing opposition. He was elected president in 1958 and 1963; the 1967 constitution permitted him to be reelected numerous times. Under his rule the national economy improved and financial relationships with other countries were strengthened. Although Stroessner was elected in 1988 for an eighth term, Paraguayans wearied of his domineering administrative style. He was overthrown in a coup in Feb., 1989. The coup leader, Gen. Andres Rodríguez, was elected president, and he gradually began moving the country away from its authoritarian past.

In 1993, Juan Carlos Wasmosy of the governing Colorado party won the presidency, but his power was weakened by a divided legislature, labor strikes, and the demands of farmers for more equitable land distribution. In Apr., 1996, an apparent military coup by the army chief, Lino Oviedo, was averted. When Oviedo became the presidential candidate of the Colorado party in 1997, however, Wasmosy had him arrested on charges of insubordination in the 1996 dispute. Oviedo was sentenced to 10 years in prison; his running mate, Raúl Cubas Grau, replaced him and won the 1998 election. Wasmosy was later (2002) convicted of corruption because of his role in a bank scandal during his presidency.

Shortly after taking office Cubas freed Oviedo, and later ignored a supreme court order to return the former general to prison. A bitter power struggle developed between Cubas and his vice president, Luis María Argaña, who was killed in a street ambush in Mar., 1999. Following several days of rioting, Cubas was impeached on charges of misuse of public office; he resigned and fled to Brazil, returning in 2002 to face charges arising from the assassination. Oviedo fled to Argentina but disappeared in December, claiming to have returned to Paraguay. The president of the senate, Luis González Macchi, became president, heading a government of national unity.

An attempted coup by supporters of Oviedo failed in May, 2000, and Oviedo was arrested the following month in Brazil. A special vice presidential election in August was narrowly won by the Liberal party candidate, Julio César Franco; it was the first national election lost by the Colorado party since it came to power in 1947. Franco benefited from the split within the Colorado party and had the de facto support of Oviedo.

González Macchi's coalition subsequently disintegrated as his opponents within the Colorado party and Franco's supporters sought to undermine the president. In 2001, Paraguay's request to extradite Oviedo from Brazil was rejected by the latter country's supreme court. Opposition to the president culminated in 2003 in an impeachment trial for corruption that González Macchi denounced as politically motivated; the president survived when his opponents fell short of the two thirds majority needed to convict him in the Paraguayan senate. In the Apr., 2003, presidential election, Óscar Nicanor Duarte Frutos, the Colorado party candidate, won; Franco placed second. Oviedo returned to Paraguay in June, 2004, and was promptly arrested and jailed, but he was released on parole in Sept., 2007, and his conviction was overturned the next month.

In 2006 former president Macchi was convicted of involvement in the illegal transfer in 2000 of Paraguayan central bank funds to the United States. He denied any involvement and blamed the central bank officials who had been convicted in 2004; his conviction was overturned on appeal. He was later convicted (2006) of fraud and embezzlement. Fernando Lugo Méndez, the former Roman Catholic bishop of San Pedro and a moderate leftist who was the candidate of an opposition coalition, was elected president in Apr., 2008, with about 41% of the vote. His victory ended more than six decades of Colorado party rule, but the Congress remained dominated by conservative parties. In September, Lugo accused his predecessor and former General Oviedo of being involved in a plot to overthrow him; they denied the accusation.

In Apr., 2009, Lugo's reputation was damaged when he was forced to acknowledge that he had fathered a child while a bishop. There were accusations that he had additional children with other women, and he eventually acknowledged having a second child. Brazil agreed in 2009 (ratified 2011) to triple payments to Paraguay for exported electricity generated by the Itaipú Dam. In 2010, attacks by leftist guerrillas led in April to the imposition of a 30-day state of emergency and military rule in N Paraguay, but no significant progress against the guerrillas resulted, and they increased their activity in subsequent years.

Lugo, who had alienated both his leftist supporters and more conservative Liberal party allies, lost support in the Congress after a land eviction by police in June, 2012, led to violence and 17 deaths, and he was quickly impeached and removed from office by both his Colorado opponents and former Liberal allies. Federico Franco Gómez, the vice president and a Liberal, succeeded Lugo as president. Mercosur suspended Paraguay for a year in response to the impeachment.

Horacio Cartes Jara, a wealthy businessman and the Colorado party candidate, was elected president in Apr., 2013. In Mar., 2017, the senate voted in a closed session to approve a constitutional amendment that would allow the president to run for a second term, sparking protests and riots; protestors set fire to the Congress building. In April the president said he would not be a candidate in the next election if the amendment was adopted; the lower house rejected the amendment. The Colorado candidate, former senator Mario Abdo Benítez, won the Apr., 2018, presidential election.

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