Paraguay: One And Done

PARAGUAY

One and Done

In any other country, Paraguay’s president, Horacio Cartes, would probably be basking in popularity and skating toward re-election. But that’s not the case in this booming country, whose seven million people suffered under a brutal dictatorship from 1954 to 1989.

Cartes delivered economic growth of more than 3 percent a year over the past four years – when other Latin American countries were plunging into bankruptcy. But when a group of senators in April sought to ram through constitutional changes that would allow him to run for a second term, thousands took to the streets to protest. And the presidential primary held in December suggests their anger hasn’t entirely cooled.

Senator Mario Abdo Benitez trounced the ex-finance minister whom Cartes had handpicked as his successor to win the nomination from the ruling Colorado Party on Dec. 17, Reuters reported. The news agency called the election result a “sharp rebuke” to the otherwise successful president. Adding insult to injury: Abdo is the son of former dictator Alfredo Stroessner’s private secretary.

“The arrogant establishment has been defeated today and forever. … We all have scars but are urging unity for the Colorados and later, Paraguay,” Abdo told his supporters following the vote.

The Colorado Party has governed Paraguay for nearly 70 years, including during Stroessner’s 1954-1989 dictatorship, with a brief interruption when leftist Fernando Lugo was elected in 2008 and impeached in 2012. So Abdo is likely to win the presidency in April when he faces lawyer Efrain Alegre, who won the opposition Liberal Party’s nomination.

That’s a stunning change in a year’s time. In April 2017, Cartes looked likely to square off against Lugo amid moves to end the constitutional rule limiting presidents to a single term.

But their backers’ efforts to amend the constitution in the senate rather than through a constituent assembly enraged many citizens, the Economist reported. Thousands took to the streets, police killed a 25-year-old protester named Rodrigo Quintana, and the rule change was scuttled, despite its proponents’ argument that Paraguay is the only country in Latin America that does not allow second terms and needs to modernize its constitution.

The snafu could boost Alegre’s chances, of course. But a bigger concern is whether the interruption in the relative stability that Paraguay has enjoyed under Cartes was just a blip or a signal of greater problems to come.

In part due to the president’s low-tax policy, Paraguay has enjoyed one of the fastest economic growth rates in Latin America. Its economy grew around 4 percent last year, and FocusEconomics’ LatinFocus panel projects 3.8-percent GDP growth each year in 2018 and in 2019. Stratfor also credits Cartes’ business-friendly policies for stimulating a small but robust manufacturing sector.

For the former soft-drink and tobacco executive, that may mean history will look upon him fondly. But for Paraguay’s presidents, the rule remains “one and done.”