Paraguay Government and Politics
Presidential offices at the Government Palace, Asunción
ON FEBRUARY 14, 1988, General Alfredo Stroessner Mattiauda was
elected for his eighth consecutive term as president of the
Republic of Paraguay. Stroessner, the candidate of the National
Republican Association-Colorado Party (Asociación Nacional
Republicana-Partido Colorado), officially won 88.7 percent of the
vote. At the time of the election, the president was seventy-five
and in his thirty-fourth year of rule. He had held power longer
than any other Paraguayan and was five years ahead of Cuba's Fidel
Castro Ruz for longevity in office in the hemisphere. Among
contemporary international leaders, only Kim Il Sung of the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Todor
Zhivkov of Bulgaria had been in power longer. When Stroessner first
took office in August 1954, Juan Domingo Perón was president of
Argentina, Getulio Dornelles Vargas was president of Brazil, and
Dwight D. Eisenhower was president of the United States.
Stroessner's enduring power was based on the twin pillars of the
armed forces and the Colorado Party. The former--from which he
emerged and in which he maintained positions as commander in chief
of the armed forces and commander in chief of the army--provided
the institutional base for order and stability. The latter, of
which he wrested control in the mid-1950s, furnished the links with
large sectors of society, provided for mobilization and support,
and allowed him to legitimate his rule through periodic elections.
The overall system, based on these two institutional pillars,
functioned through a combination of coercion and cooptation
involving a relatively small sector of the population in the
slightly industrialized and partly modernized country.
As Stroessner and the enduring small group of supporters around
him aged, the regime was increasingly unable to respond to popular
demands to begin a transition toward democracy, despite much
speculation in the mid-1980s that change was in the air. The
demands for change originated from a variety of sources, both
foreign and domestic. As the neighboring republics of Argentina,
Bolivia, Brazil, and Uruguay underwent political transitions from
authoritarian to democratic regimes in the early 1980s, Paraguay
was often considered with Chile, on the far side of the Andes, the
only remaining analogous regime in South America. Pressure from
these new democracies for a similar transition in Paraguay was low;
however, in the 1980s the United States was clearly in favor of a
political opening for a peaceful transition in the post-Stroessner
era. Support for democracy with broad participation, as well as a
pointed critique of the Stroessner regime's human rights policies,
also were prominent in the speeches of Pope John Paul II during his
visit to Paraguay in May 1988.
In addition to the external isolation and foreign pressure,
there were important internal pressures for a transition. After
very high rates of economic growth in the 1970s, Paraguay's economy
stagnated in the 1980s. In addition, the external debt nearly
doubled during the same period. Within Paraguay the major
opposition political parties, which had formed a National Accord
(Acuerdo Nacional) in 1979, began to promote public demonstrations
in April 1986. This growing, heterogeneous movement was joined in
its opposition by other organizations and movements, including the
Roman Catholic Church and sectors of business, labor, and
university students.
Despite these pressures, Stroessner was once again nominated by
the Colorado Party for the 1988 election, although the nomination
split the party into a number of competing factions. The state of
siege declared by Stroessner in 1954 was finally lifted in April
1987, but opposition politicians and leaders of movements were
arbitrarily arrested, meetings broken up, and demonstrations
violently repressed. With the closing of the daily ABC Color
in March 1984, the weekly El Pueblo in August 1987, and
Radio Ñandutí in January 1987, of the independent media, only the
Roman Catholic Church's Radio Caritas and its weekly Sendero
remained. Under these conditions, most opposition parties advocated
abstention or blank voting in the elections. The church also
registered its reservations on the validity of the elections by
admitting the acceptability of blank voting.
Paraguay had had barely two years of democratic rule by law in
its entire history. It lacked any tradition of constitutional
government or liberal democracy to serve as a reference point.
Traditionally, out-of-power groups had proclaimed their democratic
commitment but repressed their opponents when they took over the
reins of power. Thus, a transition to democracy for Paraguay would
not mean a return to a previous status, as in the case of its
neighbors, but rather the creation of democracy for the first time.
Data as of December 1988
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