The need for practicality in the opposition (I): candidacies for president and governorships

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By Javier Las­salle

Most of the po­lit­i­cal par­ties in Paraguay are in the process of elec­toral union through an al­liance that would com­pete against the ANR in the elec­tions of 2023. The in­vi­ta­tion to the for­ma­tion of the coali­tion in­cludes ac­tors of the en­tire ide­o­log­i­cal spec­trum and sev­eral par­ties have al­ready ex­pressed their in­ter­est in the call.

The broad po­lit­i­cal spec­trum im­plies that within the con­cer­ta­tion there are pos­si­bly par­ties as dif­fer­ent as the Frente Guasu and Pa­tria Querida, i.e., peo­ple who tena­ciously op­pose the Zavala-Ri­era Law and Zavala him­self. It is cer­tainly awk­ward sev­eral peo­ple may won­der what the point of this is. Why should an op­po­si­tion front en­com­pass­ing such dif­fer­ent par­ties even be pro­posed? The an­swer, to me, is there is sim­ply no other op­tion. It is the ANR that is forc­ing this sit­u­a­tion.

Let us an­a­lyze the per­cent­age of votes that the ANR had from 1993 on­wards in the pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. In gen­eral, the ANR does not fall be­low 40%, ex­cept in its worst years (2003 and 2008) due to the schism they suf­fered with UN­ACE. Note the case of 2008: the ANR is di­vided for the only time in this pe­riod (there was no fa­mous “Re­pub­li­can em­brace”) and the can­di­dacy of Lino Oviedo (UN­ACE) at­tracted many col­orado votes. This is per­haps the worst pos­si­ble sce­nario for the ANR, but it still ob­tained 30.6% of the votes and 31.8% of the valid votes.

Source: TSJE

What can the op­po­si­tion par­ties do in this sce­nario? There is no other op­tion but to unite. Any po­lit­i­cal group­ing that has se­ri­ous in­ten­tions of be­ing a gov­ern­ment needs to unite with the rest of the op­po­si­tion. Also, any po­lit­i­cal group­ing that de­cides not to par­tic­i­pate in a great op­po­si­tion al­liance or agree­ment, plays in fa­vor of the ANR. It would have been dif­fer­ent if the ANR av­er­aged 40% or less (which hap­pened when Lino Oviedo di­vided the ANR), where there would be a pos­si­bil­ity of win­ning with only a frac­tion of the op­po­si­tion to the ANR. But Lino Oviedo is no longer here, and the ANR will ar­rive united, no mat­ter how many ac­cu­sa­tions are made in its in­ter­nal elec­tions.

the union responds to a practical need, and it is necessary to admit it without any twists and turns. Those who unite do not necessarily want to be together, but they need to be together. If they unite, what are the reasons to vote for them? Many of us believe that the advance of organized crime and corruption without consequences are reasons enough. On the various other important issues, the people will choose through their legislators.

In the case of the gov­er­norates, the sit­u­a­tion is sim­i­lar:

Source: TSJE

There are de­part­ments in which the op­po­si­tion must not only go united but must also be able to at­tract votes from the ANR it­self to win or ap­peal to an ex­tra­or­di­nary in­crease in elec­toral par­tic­i­pa­tion, since the AN­R’s pref­er­ence usu­ally ex­ceeds 50%.

How does the ANR achieve such ap­proval over time? I am not a po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist, so I leave it to oth­ers to ex­plain it. But it is re­mark­able that even with its in­ter­nal dif­fer­ences, this group man­ages to unite for the gen­eral elec­tions. Op­po­nents, if they want to suc­ceed, should do the same.

The ANR, un­like the op­po­si­tion, has his­tor­i­cal fac­tors, tra­di­tion, etc. that help to keep it united. The op­po­si­tion does not have this. In ad­di­tion, there is prob­a­bly more ide­o­log­i­cal vari­a­tion in the op­po­si­tion. This great ide­o­log­i­cal di­vi­sion, more­over, will make im­pos­si­ble any at­tempt to pre­sent a pro­gram or coun­try pro­ject that can go into de­tails, since, if it does, it will touch on is­sues on which not every­one will agree and will cause enough vot­ers to de­fect from the con­cer­ta­tion for the ANR to win.

So, what can the op­po­si­tion coali­tion of­fer dif­fer­ently than the ANR? As ar­gued, a de­tailed of­fer will ex­clude peo­ple nec­es­sary to win. But I cite some gen­eral is­sues that could be agreed be­yond the dif­fer­ences.

First, the prob­lem of or­ga­nized crime. Here there is much that can be done. Scan­ners 24 hours a day in all ports, radars, con­trol of cer­tain key ac­tors in money laun­der­ing, to­bacco trace­abil­ity, etc. In fact, here the Frente Guasu and Pa­tria Querida usu­ally vote in the same di­rec­tion. Sev­eral events in re­cent months have placed this is­sue at the cen­ter of the de­bate. The link­age of some crim­i­nals with the ANR or even some ANR au­thor­i­ties proven to be part of or­ga­nized crime should be cap­i­tal­ized by the op­po­si­tion.

Sec­ond, the fight against cor­rup­tion. It is not that the col­orados in gen­eral are con­sid­ered cor­rupt, but his­tory shows that in cases such as those of the gov­er­nors of Cen­tral and Guaira, the ANR usu­ally pro­tects its cor­rupt peo­ple. What will the op­po­si­tion do if one of its gov­er­nors or an­other au­thor­ity has a case sim­i­lar to Hugo Javier’s? The op­po­si­tion could of­fer the cit­i­zens a clear pro­to­col of ac­tion in these cases, not de­fend­ing cor­rupt peo­ple just be­cause they be­long to their sec­tor.

The third thing that the op­po­si­tion can of­fer is that the peo­ple de­cide which model of coun­try to fol­low. Be­yond the pres­i­den­tial for­mula, the model of the coun­try is cho­sen in the Cham­ber of Deputies and Sen­a­tors and it is there where the peo­ple will choose what they want. If peo­ple want some­thing from the left, they know very well who to vote for; if they want a more right-wing ap­proach, they also know who to vote for. It is no small thing that the op­po­si­tion can choose a win­ning for­mula and its leg­is­la­tor, since in all pre­vi­ous al­liance processes the for­mula was pre­vi­ously cho­sen by po­lit­i­cal agree­ment.

As for gov­er­nors, the op­po­si­tion should be able to elect only one can­di­date per de­part­ment. Some small op­po­si­tion par­ties are afraid to go to an in­ter­nal elec­tion be­cause, they ar­gue, the PLRA with its struc­ture would eas­ily beat them. It is pos­si­ble. One op­tion is to reach a po­lit­i­cal agree­ment where the PLRA takes the gu­ber­na­to­r­ial can­di­da­cies where it has more chances (Cen­tral, Cordillera, Con­cep­ción, Amam­bay and oth­ers) and yields to other par­ties in those de­part­ments where the op­po­si­tion needs to at­tract col­ored votes in or­der to win (since the ANR usu­ally has more than 50% of the votes) such as Paraguarí, Ñeem­bucú, Mi­siones, Bo­querón, Alto Paraguay and oth­ers.

In short, the union re­sponds to a prac­ti­cal need, and it is nec­es­sary to ad­mit it with­out any twists and turns. Those who unite do not nec­es­sar­ily want to be to­gether, but they need to be to­gether. If they unite, what are the rea­sons to vote for them? Many of us be­lieve that the ad­vance of or­ga­nized crime and cor­rup­tion with­out con­se­quences are rea­sons enough. On the var­i­ous other im­por­tant is­sues, the peo­ple will choose through their leg­is­la­tors.

Cover im­age: @con­certa­cionpy