Elections deepen crisis in Paraguay

Demonstrators gather in front of the jail where Paraguayo "Payo" Cubas is being held in Asunción. Photo: William Costa.

Reportage • Lis García and William Costa • May 19, 2023 • Leer en castellano

On May 5th, around 300 protesters, including a considerable number of campesinos and campesinas from rural Paraguay, arrived at the gate of a police base that serves as a provisional penitentiary for prominent figures in the capital city of Asunción.

Their protest took place five days after the April 30 general elections in Paraguay. “Free Payo!” shouted protesters a few meters from a long line of police. “There was fraud!”

That same day, Paraguayo "Payo" Cubas, a controversial candidate for president in the elections, was imprisoned for "disturbing the public peace", among other charges. 

Cubas is known for his populist posturing and acts of physical violence, such as defecating in a judge's office and striking legislators with a belt during his brief stint as senator before he was expelled from Congress. Following the elections, in which he came in third, Cubas alleged electoral fraud. 

His accusations sparked ongoing protests throughout the country that challenged Santiago Peña’s landslide victory. Peña was the candidate of Partido Colorado (Red Party), the right wing political group that’s been in power almost without interruption for more than 75 years, including during General Alfredo Stroessner’s bloody dictatorship from 1954 to 1989.

The mobilizations lasted just over two weeks, until demonstrators were evicted in a violent police raid at the main protest site in front of the Superior Tribunal of Electoral Justice in Asunción in the early morning of May 17. There are indications that protests will resume in the coming days.

Cubas is the leader of the right-wing Cruzada Nacional (National Crusade) party, which has "anti-establishment" and authoritarian tendencies. Although his persona invites comparisons with figures like Bolsonaro and Trump, the demonstrations in his favor are a far cry from post-electoral violence experienced in recent years in Brasilia and Washington.

The demands of the protests in Paraguay go beyond Cubas. While the main slogans expressed a rejection of the electoral process, the protests also catalyzed the discontent of diverse social sectors that don’t directly identify as populist supporters. 

The mobilizations opposed the gaping socio-economic injustices caused by decades of neglect by Colorado governments. They also manifested the deep and widespread distrust of Paraguay's fragile democratic system which was installed in 1989, and which has failed to guarantee basic rights—access to land, food, health, housing and education—for social majorities.

The campesino and Indigenous presence in these barely organized demonstrations coincides with the disastrous performance of left-wing parties—their historical allies—in the recent elections. They’ve been left in a state of political orphanhood.

Ndaipóri cambio (No change)

The demands at the spontaneous protest—in which urban youth also participated—in front of the prison where Cubas is being held are very different from those that had taken place a few weeks prior during the Indigenous and Popular Campesino March in Asunción.

During the landmark and disciplined annual march, the Federación Nacional Campesina (FNC), perhaps the most important campesino organization in the country, expressed its support for the Concertación Para un Nuevo Paraguay (Coalition for a New Paraguay), an alliance of non-Colorado parties coming from a broad ideological spectrum, made up of political groups ranging from the left to the ultra-right.

"The Concertación brought some oxygen to the people," said Teodelina Villalba, leader of the FNC days before the elections. It was the first time that her organization had ever endorsed a political candidate. 

Many in the popular and progressive sectors hoped the April elections would bring change. Through the Concertación they hoped to overthrow the Partido Colorado, weakened both by internal conflicts and U.S. intervention.

Teodolina Villalba announces the National Campesino Federation’s support for the Concertación during the Indigenous, Campesino and Popular March on March 30, 2023. Photo: William Costa.

“Peña would mean the continuation of current policies. No health, no education, no land, no policies to assist campesinos,” Villalba said of the ruling party candidate in the days before the election.

The Colorado Party maintains a “hybrid regime” in Paraguay, called so even by the neoliberal publication The Economist. Its electoral democracy lacks a full division of powers or a social rule of law. Elections allow the party to preserve a democratic façade, propping up its power through a clientelistic electoral machinery built over 35 years of dictatorship.

On election day, it quickly became clear that Efraín Alegre, candidate of the Concertación and right-wing leader of the Partido Liberal, Paraguay's second largest political force, would lose. He only obtained 27.48 percent of votes. Peña swept with 42.74 percent, while Cubas, whose party did not enter the Concertación, surprised with 22.91 percent.

"Almost all [movement] leaders are in very, very bad shape," says Esther Leiva, leader and co-founder of the Coordination of Campesino and Urban Workers (CTCU), one of Paraguay's most important campesino organizations.

Leiva, smiling and in a Spanish laced with the strong tones of the Guaraní language, stands in the CTCU office, which is located near Asunción's main bus terminal, a strategic point for the arrival of the activists from the countryside. 

Although the CTCU didn't formally endorse the Concertación, Leiva said they'd hoped to see fellow campesinos winning positions of political representation, which didn't happen. 

"We were hoping to get rid of this old structure. We'd hoped to change things even a little bit," she said. "And we couldn’t pull it off."

Struggling for a little bit of land

The desire for political and social change arises from the concentration of land in an agricultural country in which the economy is based on agricultural exports.

Although Paraguayan legislation recognizes the right to land, it hasn't been guaranteed by the state. As such, campesinos have historically claimed this right through informal occupations, entering into conflict with the main interests of the national ruling class, namely the cattle and soybean industries, which control 94 per cent of the country's agricultural lands.

In this context, the central historical demand of the rural agricultural sector is access to a "piece of land".

"And if we don't fight, if we don't occupy the land, if we don't struggle, it's impossible to get a piece of land," said Leiva.

During the last decade, their struggle for land has been marked by a process of criminalization. Most rural leaders have been prosecuted, had arrest warrants issued against them, been subjected to long and tortuous judicial processes, and even imprisonment. 

"I’ve been sentenced to eight years. My case is ongoing," Leiva says. "We're all criminalized, we’re all facing time."

Criminalization comes hand in hand with the escalation of forced evictions against campesino settlements. During the current administration of President Mario Abdo (2018-2023)—who is the son of the former private secretary of the tyrant Stroessner—at least 57 campesino communities have been violently evicted, according to the Observatory of Land, Agribusiness and Human Rights by Base Social Research. In addition, four campesino leaders have been assassinated. 

In 2021, the "Riera-Zavala Law" was enacted, which raised the penalty for "invasion of property" to up to 10 years and reclassified land occupations as a crime.

"We say this law is criminal, because it means we can no longer fight for land," Leiva said. "We know that there's bad land distribution in Paraguay, and the only option for the campesino class is to have land."

For context, the rural population has also been severely affected by an increase in extreme poverty, which rose from 7.4 percent in 2020 to 10.2 percent in 2022, according to official figures. This is partly due to the impact of the post-pandemic economic crisis, the loss of food and seeds due to an extended drought (2020-2022), and the lack of development policies for small-scale agriculture.

After the elections, it appears the anti-campesino agenda and the criminalization of rural movements will not only continue, but will deepen. In addition to the election of Peña, in the new legislature—which was also elected in the April 30 elections—there will be a Colorado and ultra-conservative majority in both chambers.

Esther Leiva, head of the Coordination of Campesino and Urban Workers at her office in Asunción. Photo: William Costa. 

"All the worst people representing the most brutal bourgeoisie made it in," Leiva said in an interview at her office in Asunción. "They aren't interested in their country, they aren't interested in sovereignty, they aren't interested in anything; the only thing they’re interested in is themselves."

The campesina leader emphasized the dramatic impact this will have on rural small farmers and their struggle. 

“We’re afraid, we’re afraid; we have to say that, too. But that's why we can't just sit back and do nothing. We have to face this situation and deal with it,” she said.

Indigenous territories under threat

Paraguay’s 20 Indigenous nations have also suffered the impacts of criminalization and evictions, despite the multiple additional protections afforded them by national laws and international treaties.

“Everyday Indigenous communities face harassment, eviction, and invasions,” said Alba Eiragi, a poet who is a leader of the Ava Guaraní people. “Landowners are taking over more and more land and making everything harder for the communities."

In 2021—the year the Riera-Zavala Law came into force—there was an alarming increase in evictions on Indigenous territory. Indigenous people make up around two percent of the country’s population, and they have much less access to basic services such as health, education, food and drinking water.

According to a report by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, 63 percent of Indigenous people live in poverty, compared to 5.6 percent of the general population.

“The Partido Colorado hasn’t looked after the interests of the Indigenous peoples. Not at all,” said Eiragi.

The Ava Guaraní leader emphasizes that it was only during Fernando Lugo’s government, between 2008 and 2012, that Indigenous peoples gained better conditions for titling their territories and were able to strengthen their organizations. Lugo is the only non-Colorado president since the beginning of Paraguay’s democratization process in 1989.

“We were fortunate to find in Lugo a president that knows and values Indigenous peoples and their ways of organizing,” she said.

Lugo’s government was cut short after the Curuguaty Massacre, an illegal police raid carried out in a campesino settlement, where 11 campesinos and seven police officers were killed.

This massacre was orchestrated to justify the parliamentary coup that followed, disrupting a genuine process of change in the country that intended to benefit popular sectors.

The end of Luguismo?

What remains of Lugo’s government is the Guasu Front, an alliance of left-wing parties formed during the former bishop’s mandate. It has become the main political support for campesino and Indigenous movements in recent years.

In the latest pre-electoral process, the Guasu Front underwent strong internal conflicts, involving leadership disputes that led to a split into two factions supporting different candidacies. The Guasu Front lost seven of the eight Senate seats it obtained in 2018. Not even Lugo had enough votes to make it in as senator.

Justo Venialgo, the leader of campesino settlements who are fighting for land in the department of Itapúa, describes the near total disappearance of leftist parties. This is a strong, painful blow for the campesino movement.

Esperanza Martínez, a senator with the Guasu Front and the president of the Concertación, Efraín Alegre, former presidential candidate for the Concertación and the president of the Liberal Party, and José ‘Pepe” Mujica during a campaign event in Asunción. Photo: William Costa.

“We feel orphaned now, abandoned, given the results of the elections,” Venialgo said. “The Colorado Party and the Liberal Party don’t give us the support we need.”

The fall of the Guasu Front coincides with the rise of Payo Cubas’ Cruzada Nacional party, which obtained five seats in the Senate, making it the third force in Parliament.

According to Ramón “Pato” Giménez, leader of the Struggle for the Land Organization (OLT), Cubas received some support in rural areas because his populist discourse is well received in sectors that have been affected by the deep systemic crisis. It seems that the left was unable to understand and react to Paraguay’s changing rural reality.

“Payo’s discourse works because it gets at this sentiment, this situation, with the famous che kuerai (I’m fed up), because there’s so much injustice and there’s also so much oparei (impunity),” said Giménez.

Fraud, mobilizations and representational crisis

The aforementioned claims of fraud by Cubas and his party focus on alleged tampering of electoral machines. So far, there’s no official evidence for this type of fraud. The Superior Tribunal of Electoral Justice has refused to order a recount, despite popular demands.

There was ample evidence of violations of electoral regulations which have historically plagued Paraguayan democracy, including vote buying and assisted voting. In fact, one of the authors of this article witnessed multiple examples of this type of fraud.

Campesino leaders say that there’s widespread support for the fraud allegations in their communities, and not just on the part of sympathizers of the Cruzada Nacional. They say that this is partly due to a general distrust of Paraguay’s democratic system.

“I served as a local elections monitor and I saw Payo Cubas win by far,” says Venialgo. “Even if I’m not a supporter of his, I think it’s essential to respect the will of the people.”

Support for the demonstrations also stemmed from the historical inability of the democratic system—dominated by the interests of the Colorado Party and now almost without leftist representation—to respond to the systemic problems people in popular sectors are experiencing.

“The people are tired, and it's not just supporters of Cruzada Nacional. The people are tired of the system that has dominated Paraguay for more than 70 years,” said Luis Vera, who is from the Network of Lawyers for Human Rights in Paraguay.

Some sectors of the national campesino organizations formally joined the post-electoral protests. There was also widespread participation of campesinos and Indigenous people who don’t directly belong to these organizations.

As time went on and the support of the many for the protests became apparent, several groups linked to the Concertación, including the Liberal Party, added their voices to the accusations of electoral fraud, showing that the diversity of the protests and the social discontent go far beyond the figure of Cubas.

“Paraguay is going to change”

Around 56 people were injured and 20 were arrested when the main protest site in Asunción was evicted May 17 in a violent police operation.

“We came to Asunción to reclaim our rights, but last night they forced our people out. Children and pregnant women fainted,” said Alcides Cáceres, leader of the Kavaju Paso community of the Mbya Guaraní people. We spoke with him just in the Plaza Italia square just hours after the police operation.

Alcides Cáceres, the leader of the Kavaju Paso community from the Mbya Guaraní nation stands with members of his community after the eviction in Asunción on May 17, 2023. Photo: William Costa.

The leader tearfully lamented the continuous violence experienced by communities. Around him, campesinos and Indigenous people boarded cargo trucks, preparing for the ride back to their districts in different parts of the country.

“Every time we come out to mobilize our people, they repress us, they injure us, they kill us, and we never get a single answer, nothing,” said Cáceres. “The answer we get is eviction, they kill us through evictions.”

Indeed, one of the main motivations for the massive participation of Indigenous and campesino sectors in the protest is the fear that the electoral results will bring more and more violent forced evictions.

A few blocks away, a large group of campesinos took shelter in the offices of the February Revolutionary Party, one of the political groups that was part of the defeated Concertación.

While some slept on the floor, others discussed the next step for mobilizations.

“We’re upset about what’s happening because of these people that only think of themselves; they don’t answer to the people. We want justice,” said Celso Cabrera, a retired teacher from a campesino community in the department of Canindeyú. “Four hundred people from my district came here. More are preparing to come.”

Lilian Riveros, a campesina from Canindeyú, also said that mobilizations would continue.

“I came to defend the future of my children,” she said. “Now everyone is mobilizing, and Paraguay is going to change. We’ll see just how as we go.”