By Fernando Martínez Escobar.
The electoral strength obtained by the Colorado Party (ANR) in the elections of April 30 has revived the idea of the unification of the ANR in the government, but the idea of party unity is a myth that has been around for almost 40 years. Alfredo Stroessner’s regime had party unity as one of the bases on which it sustained its permanence, but that unity began to crack after the 1984 Colorado convention; it reached the point of no return in the 1987 convention and finally led to the alliance between a sector of the Armed Forces and the Traditionalist Colorado movement which overthrew Stroessner on February 3, 1989.
Minutes before the end of Stroessner’s government, the voice of General Andres Rodriguez Pedotti was heard amplified through the country’s radios communicating the intention of unifying the Colorado Party in the government. A new regime was being born. A few hours later, it was known that Rodríguez was the main driver of one part of the Armed Forces and the Colorado Party to carry out a coup d’état against the other part of the Armed Forces and the Colorado Party.
Although Rodríguez’s proclamation spoke of the unification of the Colorado Party in government, the future was different. To the surprise of many, it was division and not unity that guaranteed the strength and continuity of the party in government.
Last April 30, 2023, the ANR obtained one of its best victories; its own majority in both houses of congress, 15 or 14 governorships -the governorate of Concepción is in dispute- out of the 17 governorships of the country and a great electoral advantage of its candidate for president over the opposition candidates.
A quick glance could convince us that the proclamation of Andrés Rodríguez found its course almost 35 years later. The unity of the Colorado Party in government at last seems possible. After all, with the results of the elections, the ANR could well do without the rest of the political parties, both to conduct Paraguayan politics and to pass laws.
However, the Colorado Party has already demonstrated that electoral unity is not equal to unity in the exercise of power. The last decades have already shown that the NRA is a power of divided forces. In other words, the internal division of the ANR, as a function of government, has so far been inevitable and everything seems to indicate that this could be the path for the period 2023-2028. Let’s see why.
Four days after the elections of April 30, Senator Oscar “Cachito” Salomón said: “We do not want to work as a Colorado heavy machinery, we want to work with all sectors”. Only a few hours later, after a meeting between elected senators of the internal colorado movement Fuerza Republicana, the senator announced the creation of a block within the Senate with aspirations of becoming a new internal movement for the next constitutional period. On Friday, May 12, the colorado members of the lower house elect, close to the Fuerza Republicana movement, also announced that they will follow the path of their peers in the senate.
At first glance, anyone could see in the intention to “work with all political sectors” the result of a democratic behavior that maintains a special consideration for political minorities. It could even be interpreted that sectors of the Colorado Party decided to share power. But this is not a question of simple political will, but of a pragmatic struggle for power, based on the way the party system built after 1989 in Paraguay works.
Since the overthrow of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner in 1989, no internal movement or political leader was able to achieve a monopoly on the exercise of power. On the contrary, the counterbalance of power, among the internal movements of the ANR, was one of the adaptive responses to the dispute for institutional political power, both within the Colorado Party and at the governmental level. Thus, in each period, the ANR movements build a balance of weak forces within the party, i.e., they bet on dividing power as a strategy to retain at least part of that power and at the same time become an option for governmental power in the next electoral period.
In turn, this counterbalance between the movements is achieved in the constant dispute for the never achieved party control. Therefore, to gain preeminence within their own party and at the national level, the ANR movements resort to alliances with opposition parties.
In this sense, as we have already mentioned in more detail in two articles published a few years ago, one of the first examples of the new dynamics of the party system was generated in September 1989, that is, at the beginning of the transition to democracy. The colorado movements “ex Contestarios” and “Generación Intermedia” allied with the opposition and with 11 votes from the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA) and 2 from the Partido Revolucionario Febrerista (PRF) managed to prevent the “traditionalists”, led at that time by Luís María Argaña, Juan Ramón Chaves and Edgar L. Ynsfrán, from having full control of the Junta Electoral Central (JEC), predecessor of the current Tribunal Superior de Justicia Electoral (TSJE).
Since then, the colorado movements have been making numerous alliances with the opposition to accumulate strength against the internal movements of the ANR and to maintain a part of the party power. Several alliances have been made that set the course of history, such as the rule of no presidential reelection, product of the alliance of the traditionalist sector with the opposition during the National Constituent Assembly, to prevent the reelection of President Andres Rodriguez. The prohibition of reelection was not only a product of a “fear” of what happened during the dictatorship, as is often believed, but, as Bader Rachid Lichi states in “Presidencialismo y transición democrática” by Myriam Yore, it was also a direct result of the rivalry between the colorado leaders Argaña and Rodríguez at the beginning of the transition. The non-reelection prevented the continuation of Rodríguez in the presidency and became one of the rules of the game that have had a direct impact on the distribution and dynamics of power in Paraguay.
Other examples of agreements between colorado and opposition movements regarding the definition of rules of the game and distribution of power spaces can be found in the governability pact at the beginning of the 1990s under the government of Juan Carlos Wasmosy, in the exit of the Armed Forces from institutional political power after the Paraguayan March of 1999, in the alliances for the distribution of power in the chambers of Congress, as well as in the distribution of seats in the Supreme Court of Justice, the Public Ministry, the Jury for the Prosecution of Magistrates, the Superior Tribunal of Electoral Justice, among others.
the Colorado Party has already demonstrated that electoral unity is not equal to unity in the exercise of power. The last decades have already shown that the NRA is a power of divided forces. In other words, the internal division of the ANR, as a function of government, has so far been inevitable and everything seems to indicate that this could be the path for the period 2023-2028
There is a situation that could alter the historical dynamics of cooperation and competition of the parties. Due to the COVID health emergency, the municipal elections were held a year later, while the elections for ANR party positions were not held until December 2022, coinciding with the presidential internal elections. This means that the municipal and party elections, which were considered intermediate during the second year of any presidential term, were moved to the third year (expected in 2026), so it is possible that the internal movements of the ANR will seek to lower the intensity of their internal disputes, since the need to accumulate electoral strength will be delayed.
However, another factor that could accelerate the divisions is the situation of the president of the ANR and leader of the Honor Colorado movement, Horacio Cartes, who is under US scrutiny and could be the subject of an extradition request or specific US demands to the Peña administration. This situation could lead to the president-elect distancing himself from his mentor and could have an impact on the Honor Colorado Movement.
Perhaps that is why sectors of the Colorado Party remind Peña that Fuerza Republicana has been the majority partner in his victory. On the one hand, they push for the formation of an independent bloc away from Honor Colorado within the ANR under the idea of maintaining, for the time being, a low intensity division without identity charge. On the other hand, they aim at disputing Honor Colorado’s capacity to influence the president-elect. A sort of struggle for a still non-existent “Peñismo” which, it remains to be seen if it will be formed.