The validity of the ordinary political game in the face of the challenges of exceptionality
By José Duarte Penayo.
The 2023 presidential race comes after a period of government marked by critical and extraordinary events, capable of substantially altering the stability of the political game. The pandemic was the main event, capable of leading to the defeat of ruling political forces around the world, but it was not the only one; the harsh consequences of the drought are still in force, and the Russian-Ukrainian war continues to wreak havoc on the economy. Moreover, contrary to the 2013-2018 period, in the current five-year period the figure of impeachment once again made its presence felt through two attempts that, although unsuccessful, shook governance. However, despite the significance of these events, they did not manage to break the great lines of continuity in the way of organizing the distribution and legitimization of political power in Paraguay.
The matrices of the ordinary political game, which have developed since the advent of democracy, are still in force. The extraordinary events did not disarticulate the formal and informal arrangements that have regulated political functioning since 1989. On the contrary, the main effect of the exceptionality experienced seems to have been the reinforcement of traditional political parties as instances of representation and mobilization, while showing that the Paraguayan State has the capacity for social containment, perhaps insufficient, but by no means nonexistent.
The succession of crises, both exogenous and endogenous, could have been fertile ground for the emergence of new leaderships and modes of political intervention. However, Paraguay’s political reality seems to be far from the social convulsions that in other latitudes have led to constitutional re-foundation projects, the emergence of populist leaders, crises of representation and even popular revolts.
Paraguayan politics continues to be played at the level of the institutional structures of which the North American political scientists speak, from the constituted power, rather than at the level of the destitutive power, from where the renewed European anarchist metaphysics thinks about politics.
The protests that captured the attention of public opinion in our country, as a result of the pandemic or the political crises derived from the impeachment attempts, did not result in the emergence of players that today occupy the front page of the real dispute for power. The slogans of those moments, a “new Paraguayan March”, “ANR Never Again” and others linked to the classic anti-corruption repertoire, have little echo in the current presidential dispute. Similarly, the mobilizations in pandemic, due to their inorganic character and almost null presence of political leaders, gave the impression of being the occasion of a new certain resurgence of the “civil society”. The actions presented “against corruption”, as unpolluted by positioning themselves outside the political parties, were ephemeral. After almost two years, the prospects of intervening in the public space, without partisan mediation, and with lasting effects, seem less than a mirage.
More clearly and more recently, the centrality of the ANR and the PLRA is also manifested in other ways, such as through the blurring of the once great promise of anti-system leadership, Payo Cubas, as well as the change of position of the National Campesino (Farmers) Federation with respect to electoral contests.
In the case of Paraguayo Cubas we are witnessing the transformation of a figure who, at the beginning of this period of government, from his platform as senator, was the maximum expression of an outsider intransigent with politicians and with populist potential, to be in the present an insider in the negotiations in the opposition camp. He even recently requested, without success, to be Efraín Alegre’s vice president, and now he proposes a survey to see who is “best positioned to win the Colorado Party,” to be anointed as candidate.
In the second case, the National Campesino Federation left behind its historical position of calling for a “blank vote” and of criticizing participation in electoral contests, to officially support the Efraín Alegre-Soledad Núñez ticket. The FNC has thus distanced itself from its former maximalist positions and from demands anchored in the traditions of the autonomism of social movements.
If the eclipse of the figure of Payo Cubas can be interpreted as the failed emergence of a providential leader, a man-people overcome by his circumstances, paraphrasing Pierre Rosanvallon, the change of position of the National Campesino Federation can be considered as a symptom of the strong retreat of the modes of direct action “from below and from outside” in the face of the irrepressible vocation of the traditional parties to incorporate “from above and from within” the demands emerging in society.
Paraguayan politics continues to be played at the level of the institutional structures of which the North American political scientists speak, from the constituted power, rather than at the level of the destitutive power, from where the renewed European anarchist metaphysics thinks about politics. It is the strongly organized machineries of the ANR and the PLRA which continue to mark the pulse of the political dispute and popular mobilization, a trend which is even more accentuated with the division of the Frente Guasu and the consequent weakening of the hinge role played by the figure of Fernando Lugo. In fact, it is noteworthy that with the decline of the political figure of the former Bishop, a chapter of leaders who sought to challenge the predominance of the traditional parties, such as Caballero Vargas, Fadul, Oviedo and Lugo, ends. These challengers today have no heirs.
With the end of the 2018-2023 government period, a stage is coming to an end which, although it had events of great exceptionality, with different crises in the public and political order, concludes without the tensions that marked, with greater or lesser intensity, the end of all the governments that succeeded Andrés Rodríguez since 1993. Wasmosy was checkmated by the military, Cubas resigned after the Paraguayan March massacre, González Machi barely finished his mandate, Duarte Frutos faced marches after being reelected to the ANR Governing Board and aspiring to presidential reelection, Lugo was removed in an impeachment trial and Cartes ended with the burning of the congress and a tragic episode of political violence. The current government did not even contribute to the series of failed reelectionist presidential projects. This has been an exceptional period which, contrary to catastrophist intuitions, has overcome the social convulsion giving new impulses to the contours of national political normality and, although it is not recognized, it has been a new step in the transition of Paraguayan democracy.
Image source: Ultima Hora