Paraguayan Oviedismo

(By Mexican Cactus)

The Paraguayan Oviedismo refers to the current political system and general climate in Paraguay following a military coup and subsequent engineering towards a far-right regime through the perversion of the nation's reintroduced but now largely worthless democratic system.

## Background

Following the military coup against President Stroessner by the Traditionalist Faction of the Colorado Party in October 19 1989, General Rodríguez went against his Traditionalist allies and used the dictatorial powers granted to him as President in order to rewrite the Paraguayan Constitution in 1992, handing over government to the 1st civilian President in several decades, followed by the 1993 General Paraguayan Elections. The Traditionalists, while anti-Stroessner, supported maintaining a very strong government under the leadership of a caudillo-President through the support of the military. This resulted in the Traditionalist Colorados forming an alliance with the former Militant Colorados who had previously supported Stroessner in a new faction now known as the Ethical Colorados. The Ethical Colorados appealed mostly to Paraguay's large population of conservative rural poor by promoting caudillo-style far-right authoritarian populism. The Ethical Colorados largely rallied around General Lino Oviedo as he had participated in the Traditionalist Coup, despised the ruling moderate Colorado civilian government, and had himself come from a poor background and his supporters became known as Oviedistas.

When President Wasmosy demanded that Oviedo retire, he attempted a failed military coup in 1996 and when he attempted to secure the Colorado nomination for the 1998 General Elections he was disqualified for his participation in the 1996 coup and subsequently jailed despite being more popular than any other Colorado politician. His running-mate, Raúl Cubas Grau would assume the Colorado nomination and campaigned under the slogan "Cubas in government, Oviedo in power" to display that he intended to have Oviedo to become the country's de facto leader while assuming the de jure position for himself for a term. Cubas would win the election with 55.35% of the vote and pardoned Oviedo for his participation in the failed 1996 coup. However, Cubas's Vice President was a moderate who opposed the Ethicals which resulted in a great deal of tension between the President and Vice President and the Colorado Party's different factions. It culminated in the public assassination of Vice President Argaña on March 23rd of 1999 by a gang with alleged connections to Oviedo and Cubas.

The result was a series of protests demanding that Cubas be removed from office and arrested alongside Oviedo during which the government ended up killing 7 demonstrators and called in the Army to maintain security. When the moderate Colorados in the Congress joined the opposition in an attempt to impeach and remove President Cubas, he conducted a self-coup with the support of the Ethical Colorados and the Paraguayan Military by forcibly removing all non-Ethical Colorados from Congress, the Supreme Court, and government Ministries, providing Oviedo the role of Commander of the Armed Forces, and temporarily suspending the 1992 Constitution. The Police, Army, and Oviedista militants and gangs would break up the protests by May with the Ethical Colorados seizing complete control over the National Government and President Cubas loyal only to Oviedo and the Armed Forces.(edited)

Since then Paraguay has been under the domination of "Oviedismo and its gangster-President" (as former opposition leader Domingo Laíno put it) with Oviedo being the country's de facto leader despite his alleged connection to organized crime, gangs, and far-right Colorado militias across the country. Violence and killings targeting opposition activists, journalists, and politicians have seen a drastic rise since the coup of 1999. General Oviedo and President Cubas have announced that Oviedo will run for the Colorado candidacy in the 2003 elections and since Oviedo is the single most popular politician among both Colorados and the country as a whole, combined with Paraguay's return to intimidation-based caudillo politics, it is certain that Oviedo will achieve the Presidency and continue his grip on power.

However Oviedo and Cubas are not unopposed as the Free Homeland Party (PPL) turned into a far-left terrorist organization in Northern Paraguay following the 1999 coup and that combines Marxism and the ideology of former Perpetual Dictator de Francia. They gather their support largely from Paraguay's extreme land inequality and rural poverty with most militants suspected to be recruited from local Indian tribes, the poorest of Northern farmers, and the extended family of serving members with an estimated 300 active militants. The country's largest opposition group, the Radical Liberals, have denounced the PPL as the Authentic Radical Liberal Party and most of the rest of the Paraguayan opposition are either centrists or part of the centre-left due to the population's intense conservatism.

On the diplomatic front, Paraguay has cut all the ties with Socialist and Communist governments that were established between the Traditionalist and Ethical coups of 1989 and 1999, withdrew from MERCOSUR in 2000 following its 1999 suspension, reestablished diplomatic ties with Argentina, and joined the Fujimori and Seineldín governments of Peru and Argentina in moving away from the United States by withdrawing from the Rio Pact due to American opposition to the respective far-right coups in each nation.