Paraguay

In a classically corrupt Colorado Party move, the Paraguayan Supreme Court released Lino Oviedo (who was on parole) on a technicality, just coincidentally a few hours before the deadline to apply for a presidential run.

Under Paraguayan law, all candidates must be registered to vote and those serving prison sentences cannot register. The court decision came out shortly before Tuesday's midnight registration deadline, and Oviedo rushed to get on the voter rolls.

''It's such a visible and vulgar manipulation of justice on the part of President Nicanor Duarte Frutos,'' said Paraguayan political columnist Alfredo Boccia Paz. ``You'd have to be pathologically naive not to see the Colorado hand behind this.''

As Boz notes, this is an effort to split the opposition vote to keep the Colorado Party in power. I would only partially agree with him that Oviedo is a threat to “Paraguayan democracy,” as there is no such thing. We might say his political presence is a threat to the possibility of moving in a democratic direction.

In a recent academic article, Paul Sondrol analyzes Paraguay in the context of being a semi-authoritarian regime, and puts it as follows:

The evolving socio-political equation includes widespread disenchantment with a weak economy, a political class newfangled in the give and take inherent in a liberalized environment, and enduring traits reflecting the deepest authoritarian tradition in Latin America, mirrored in a narrow, cynical view of democracy by well-established political elites (p. 51).

…

An axiom attributed to Stroessner himself sums up the nefarious, semi-authoritarian philosophy: “It is necessary to foment criminality, for criminality produces complicity and complicity produces loyalty (p. 58).

That pretty much sums it up.

Paul Sondrol, “Paraguay: A Semi-Authoritarian Regime?” Armed Forces & Society, Vol. 34, No. 1 (2007): 46-66.