Historical trajectory of bipartisanship in municipal elections: total predominance despite national crises

By Marcos Perez Talia

On October 10, 2021, Paraguay will hold its seventh municipal elections since the fall of the stronista dictatorship. These elections were originally scheduled for November 2020, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they were postponed to 2021. This article aims to describe the dynamics of the electoral results of the six previous municipal elections. The data shows an interesting sub-national bipartisan resistance to eventual national political crises that may have put the Colorado and Liberal parties’ centrality in the municipalities at risk.

The founding elections of the municipal electoral process were those of May 26, 1991. It was the first national municipal election with direct vote and in times of freedom, although still with unrealistic registers and a certain deficiency in the organization of the electoral act. Although it was a great joy for citizens throughout the country to be able to elect their local authorities, the epicenter of the electoral campaign was in Asunción.

Table I. Main results of the first municipal elections of 1991

With a high participation, around 73%, the results marked some surprises and confirmed certain trends. Thus, several facts were highlighted. First, that Asunción would not be governed by the traditional parties but by the young union member Carlos Filizzola, of the Asunción Para Todos movement. Second, the Liberal Party, after so many decades of persecution, proscription and division, obtained substantial results, mainly in Central and Cordillera departments, which showed the important weight that this party would have in the democratic process that was beginning. Third, these elections reaffirmed the remarkable rural strength of the ANR, which triumphed in almost all of the municipalities of Itapúa, Ñeembucú, Paraguarí, Alto Paraná, Guairá and San Pedro. Finally, the independent vote at the national level reached an important number (almost 20%), although with nuances, since it concentrated a detachment from the ANR that later returned to the party, as well as genuine preferences, according to some studies.

These elections of 2021 have new condiments that can put in doubt the electoral success, mainly of the ANR: the mismanagement of the pandemic or the internal crisis between Añeteté and Honor Colorado. However, the traditional parties in the sub-national arena have known how to be resilient in the face of different national crises. At least that was observed in the six previous elections. We await with expectation to see if the sevenths can break this trend.

In November 1996, the second municipal elections were organized, although with an institutional framework very different from 1991: (i) the 1992 Constitution was sanctioned, (ii) the Superior Court of Electoral Justice (CSJ) was created, and (iii) some electoral reforms were made, such as the new Civic Registry. It can be said that, from there, the times of free, competitive and reasonably clean municipal elections started.

In the next five elections, an intense bipartisan map is observed if we look at the votes received by ANR and PLRA for candidacies for mayor.

Graph I. Votes for mayors of traditional parties (1996-2015)

In the municipal elections, a strong local logic seems to predominate, although as they are held in the middle of the presidential term, there is some attempt – mainly from the opposition – to turn them into thermometers of national politics. But despite the political crises that occurred frequently at the national level, they do not seem, however, to have put the power of the Colorados and Liberals at risk at the sub-national level.

Each municipal election had a prelude to national tension or, at least, one of the traditional parties was going through a critical juncture, which was an opportunity for the opponent to improve its results: (i) in 1996 the ANR experienced a strong crisis as a result of the split between Lino Oviedo and Juan C. Wasmosy, while the PLRA strategically allied itself in many districts with the National Encounter; (ii) in 2001, national politics witnessed citizen disenchantment after the crisis of Paraguayan March 1999 and the Red split after the movement away from Oviedismo; (iii) in 2006, Nicanor Duarte Frutos put national politics in disarray after his candidacy – allegedly unconstitutional – for president of the ANR and his attempt at constitutional reform to approve presidential re-election, while the opposition was already beginning to articulate around Fernando Lugo; (iv) in 2010, the ANR participated in the municipal elections, for the first time in sixty years, from the opposition, while the PLRA, from power, tried to improve its numbers by taking advantage of the availability of resources; (v) and in 2015, the PLRA returned to the opposition, internally very fractured and almost without resources, competing against the power of Horacio Cartes, who promised to dye the country’s municipalities red to advance his presidential re-election project.

Despite these incentives and restrictions, the trend in absolute numbers continued to remain stable, as can be seen in figure I. Neither the split of the ANR with Lino Oviedo, nor the double alternation of 2008 and 2013, substantially altered the general percentages. When the data are broken down by districts, dynamics of change will surely appear, although not in a significant way.

Graph II. Votes for councilors of the traditional parties in some departments (2006-2015)

Votes for mayors, being single-member positions without a second round, usually have a strategic action component on the part of the electorate. That is why it is worth observing the votes for councilors, which in many cases is usually classified as the hard vote of the parties. Figure II shows the votes for councilors of the traditional parties in, as an example, four departments plus Asunción, in order to explore some trends: (i) the percentages are similar to those of mayors, except in Asunción where third forces have been successfully installed: (ii) balance of forces in Concepción, Cordillera and Central, although paradoxically the PLRA tends to obtain more municipalities (probably due to the strategic vote of non-Colorado opponents); (iii) slight historical predominance of the PLRA in Amambay and (iv) important predominance of the ANR in Asunción, as well as in Itapúa, Paraguarí, Caazapá, etc.

From figure II it is striking that the PLRA, while competing competitively with the ANR in many districts, is very weak electorally in Asunción. The gradual decline is notorious since in 1996 its list of councilors obtained 23%; in 2001 12.16% (half compared to the previous period), reaching 11.8% in the last of 2015, its worst numbers in the democratic era. It is, in a way, a challenge today since liberalism, after 15 years, will once again have a candidate for mayor of the capital.

These elections of 2021 have new condiments that can put in doubt the electoral success, mainly of the ANR: the mismanagement of the pandemic or the internal crisis between Añeteté and Honor Colorado. However, the traditional parties in the sub-national arena have known how to be resilient in the face of different national crises. At least that was observed in the six previous elections. We await with expectation to see if the sevenths can break this trend.

Illustration: Roberto Goiriz