The defeat of the Colorado Party (PC) in the April presidential election meant much more than a change of government in Paraguay.
This defeat meant the fall of the last political party in Latin America that had been formed both politically and ideologically within the framework of the Cold War.
The 36 years of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) had as its leitmotiv, "the anti-communist struggle". During the "Colorado reign", US imperialism managed to build a solid alliance that, for several decades, enabled it to set up intelligence operations in the Latin American region.
After 60 years of an exercise of power marked by clientelism and corruption, as well as by the recourse to fear and terror against the masses, the fall of the PC represents the end of an important cycle in Paraguay's political history.
That is why it is necessary to recognise the progressive character of this event, both from a strictly democratic point of view and because of the contradictions that it gives rise to — particularly concerning the remarkable mobilisation of the popular movements that took part in the successful campaign of president-elect Fernando Lugo.
Political crisis
The emergence of the ex-Catholic bishop Lugo can be explained by three factors.
The first is the running out of steam of a model of imperialist domination, led by the PC, which, after the fall of the dictatorship, became converted to neoliberalism. This occurred without endangering the clientelist system on which it had built its political hegemony, based on the "state as an employer".
The Paraguayan state, out of a population of 6 million, employs no less than 200,000 civil servants, 90% of whom are members of the PC. The economic stagnation of the 1980s and '90s contributed to the erosion of this model, so much so that the party's own social base has been weakened.
A second factor is the crisis of the bourgeois opposition, in particular the Authentic Radical Liberal Party (PLRA), a party that, like the PC, has existed for 100 years and which proved to be incapable of working out a credible project in order to consolidate a two-party system.
The economic accumulation of the oligarchy — latifundist, agricultural, commercial and financial — was carried out under the protection and thanks to the intervention, legal and illegal, of the state controlled by the PC. In this context, the weak liberal bourgeoisie had only very limited room for manoeuvre.
Thirdly, there is the crisis of political leadership among the popular masses, combined with the weakness and dispersion of the left parties.
The left movements and parties had scarcely recovered from the savage persecution suffered by their principal leaders, who were assassinated, went "missing", were imprisoned or forced into exile during the Stroessner dictatorship.
However, the last few years have been marked by the entry into struggle of some popular organisations, in particular peasant organisations.
Approximately 2 million Paraguayan nationals live abroad and the rate of emigration is increasing. Approximately 2 million people live in extreme poverty and 35% are unemployed or forced to work part time. More than 300,000 landless peasants suffer from a structure of land ownership that allows 3% of the population to monopolise 90% of cultivable land.
In this context, social struggles reached several peaks of intensity during the transitional political period.
The inability of the traditional political leaderships to recover from their crisis allowed Lugo to impose himself within the progressive and popular camp. After having made public his decision to enter political life, Lugo openly defied the Catholic hierarchy by not recognising the sanction that the Vatican inflicted on him.
Lugo was bishop in the region of San Pedro, one of the poorest in the country, which has become a strategic zone for the development of peasant struggles. On several occasions, Lugo expressed his support for these struggles, and sometimes took part in them.
That is why his candidacy threw into a panic the most conservative political sectors, such as the corporations of large landowners, stockbreeders and agro-industrial entrepreneurs. In this context, it took Lugo hardly more than a year to inflict electoral defeat on a party that had exercised power for more than six decades.
The 'third way'
The candidacy of Lugo benefited from the support of the majority of social organisations and left-wing political parties. However, when his candidacy was launched, these sectors alone appeared insufficient to overcome the PC electoral machine.
Finally, a very broad alliance took shape behind Lugo, extending from social organisations and parties resolutely positioned on the left to certain conservative sectors. Heterogeneous, this alliance is based on a common centre-left project, with an important place given to social programs.
The desire for change was expressed by three axes that constituted the points of agreement between the various sectors.
First of all, the need to put a stop to "the unending reign of the Colorado Party", to corruption and to impunity — an objective that made it possible to bring together various social sectors.
Secondly, land reform — a historical demand of the workers, the peasants and all the popular sectors — constituted the central point of a program that was above all democratic, but which also comprised a series of measures announcing the intention of significant structural change.
Lastly, this program took up the defence of national sovereignty by putting forward the need to renegotiate the unjust treaties of Itaipu and Yacyreta — two big hydroelectric dams built jointly with, respectively, Brazil and Argentina.
The case that undoubtedly gives rise to the most tensions is the Itaipu dam — a symbol of the kind of relations that Brazil maintains with Paraguay.
For several decades, Paraguay has whetted the appetites of the big Brazilian bourgeoisie, which has systematically taken over big agricultural estates and vast tracts of land devoted to the cultivation of soya. Thousands of peasants have been driven off the land in recent years, which has led to a series of negative social, environmental and cultural consequences.
The emergence of centre-left governments allied with conservative forces is not a Paraguayan innovation, as Brazil illustrates.
These experiences are characterised by a discourse announcing a double rupture with "the neoliberal right defending above all its own privileges" and the "traditional left", but also by a political practice that does not in reality break significantly with neoliberal capitalism. We are seeing, in a certain sense, the installation of a "third way" within peripheral capitalism!
New space for struggle
It has been becoming obvious for several years now that the transition that began in 1989 was confined to an exacerbated conservatism: the political and economic mafia had managed to reorganise and re-establish themselves in all spheres of power.
Far from consolidating a bourgeois democracy, the new process that is underway makes it possible to revitalise a space of political and public freedoms. The fall of the PC opens up the possibility of a new space of struggle and contradictions, and liberates social forces that were historically placed under the yoke of the PC.
It is not a process that solves the political crisis of the dominant classes. On the contrary, it could make it possible to deepen the crisis of the Colorados — unflinching supporters of imperialist policies in Paraguay.
It is a process that requires a change of social forces at the top of the state. This bourgeoisie looks with distrust on the PLRA, which comprises the most conservative sectors supporting Lugo, not because of ideological divergences, but because it is afraid the PLRA will not be effective enough if it has to face an increase in social struggles, principally in the countryside.
The left and social organisations have the possibility of re-launching mobilisations. In fact, immediately after the electoral victory of April 20, and before the government had even taken office, occupations of large landholdings and mobilisations to block the advance of the agro-industrial sectors began again with renewed vigour.
The Marxist left, however, is prey to division, and that is how it presented itself to the voters at the last elections. Some groups concluded alliances with the conservative parties that supported Lugo. Others gave their "critical support", but did not join the Patriotic Alliance for Change (APC, the pro-Lugo electoral alliance).
Another current called for a "protest vote", but without explicitly committing itself to support Lugo. The same tendencies took shape within the social organisations, even though the majority decided to join the APC.
The total of the votes obtained by the left is not negligible. Nevertheless, this left could only get two members elected to the National Congress because of the lack of unity. In order to overcome this problem and to build a unified leadership, the left must face up to a tactical dilemma that could determine the limits of its own possibilities.
This is the possibility that a majority of those political and social forces that are members of the APC, chooses an accumulation of forces from within the government, as well as the maintenance of its alliances with conservative sectors, in order to guarantee the possibility for Lugo and his team to govern.
Lugo's supporters remain weak inside a Congress that is dominated by conservative forces, and he will necessarily have to play the card of mobilisations and popular struggles.
Lugo knows the limits of the support of the PLRA, in particular with regard to social policies and programs. He also knows that other left organisations and social sectors are maintaining their critical support, in particular concerning some of the points of his electoral program.
So there exists in fact a re-launching of the transition, a new space for struggle and a crisis of political leadership. There is an opportunity to advance towards a new project of radical social change for the left forces and social sectors.
[Hugo Richer is a Paraguayan political analyst active in the Party of Popular Socialist Convergence (PCPS), which supported Lugo in the presidential election. This article is abridged from International Viewpoint, http://www.internationalviewpoint.org.]