POLITICS-PARAGUAY: Freedom for Oviedo and Welcome Home Stroessner

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Carlos Montero

ASUNCION, May 11 1998 (IPS) - The imprisoned Lino Oviedo, mentor of Raul Cubas, the apparent winner of Sunday’s elections here, and former dictator Alfredo Stroessner, exiled in Brazil, will be the first to benefit from the Colorado Party’s amnesty plans.

Cubas’s allies proposed the amnesty law be the first project tackled by the government taking over on August 15, a move which will allow Stroessner back into the country and free former general Stroessner, currently serving a ten-year sentence for his coup attempt in 1996.

Support for this amnesty may have well have been Cubas’s winning ticket, and the vice-presidential candidate, Luis Maria Argana, is president of the Colorado Party and was the highest authority of the Supreme Court during the Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989).

The Argana sector of the Colorado party is advised by Stroessner’s former collaborators, said a declared “Arganist,” Enrique Barrail, in a public statement.

Meanwhile, Cubas, officially the winner, although the result is still preliminary and incomplete, insisted “all possible mechanisms will be sought for Oviedo to see justice.”

He also stated no “revenge” would be taken, in an effort to calm the fears of the military leaders who put him away, worried Oviedo would become a member of Cubas’s governing team following the pardon.

According to the local press, the army and air chiefs who put down Oviedo’s attempted rebellion in April 1996, told President Juan Carlos Wasmosy they would not accept Cubas as president during the election campaign.

Outgoing Colorado senator, Arnaldo Rojas declared Monday, an amnesty law was needed “for the reconciliation of all Paraguayans.”

Rojas announced the presentation of the amnesty project for July, when forecasts state the new Colorado Party dominated legislative will have an absolute majority.

“Stroessner has to return to his country,” he said. For while the former dictator “committed injustices, but he is a national figure. Warts and all, he was a great president.”

The same norm will also free Oviedo, the man the Colorado Party claim was behind the victory this Sunday.

By the time 45 percent of the vote had been counted, Cubas and Argana had taken 54 percent of the votes. There were a total of 10,200 polling stations and 2.05 million eligible voters on the electoral roll.

According to information from the Higher Tribunal of Electoral Justice, the opposition Democratic Alliance, which backed the candidacy of Domingo Laino, took 43 percent.

The parallel recount by the non governmental organisations of the Saka project (“transparency” in Guarani) and backed by the Interamerican Institute of Human Rights, said 53 percent of the total had gone to Cubas, and 43 percent to Laino.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance said 80 percent of the faxed ballot papers received by the TSJE were forged.

These allegations were initially lodged Sunday night by director of the Electoral Register, Ramon Ferreira. According to him, this measure aimed to swell voting for the Colorado Party.

Ferreira’s declaration took the international observers by surprise, as they had seen no serious irregularities in the elections, but it nonetheless slowed down the count.

The Colorado Party recovered the absolute majority in the Senate, which it had lost in 1993, taking a forecast 24 seats out of a total of 45. Meanwhile, the opposition will lose four seats in the upper chamber.

The ruling party will also apparently take control of the 80 member Chamber of Deputies.

Oviedo’s lawyer, Jose Francisco Appleyard, complained to the TSJE of an alleged violation of the political propaganda embargo by Laino. He is supposed to have said he had “irreversible” figures proving the opposition had won before the embargo ended.

If the TSJE rules that these words imply an electoral offence, Laino could be sent to prison, as there are no suspended sentences for this type of penalty.

“The opposition is desperate, because the foreign observers came to see the Colorado Party defeated and were surprised to see this sleeping giant awaken,” said Cesar Campos, of the Oviedo faction.

“The Colorado people, more than a million voters, will not allow a mockery to be made of their vote,” said Campos, as hundreds of Colorado demonstrators assembled outside the TSJE.

Organisation of American States Secretary General, Cesar Gaviria, heading a group of international observers on election day, said the new Paraguayan voting system had “worked pretty well.”

However, a Colorado leader in the city of Itaugua, 30 kilometres from Asuncion, was arrested when it was proven he had been buying civil identity cards for 15,000 guaranis (56 US dollars), effectively buying the vote of the owners of the documents.

Cubas and Argana visited Wasmosy in the presidential palace, when the forecasts began to show the Colorado Party victory. The president promised the two leaders he would “work together (with them) for a calm transition.”

Wasmosy embraced Argana, but only shook hands with Cubas, after differnces during the electoral campaign.

Cubas blamed the president for Oviedo’s imprisonment, after Oviedo had become the Colorado Party candidate following internal elections in September. He lost the position in April when the Supreme Court sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

The parliamentary majority achieved by the Colorado Party will allow them to approve all their projects from July 1, the date the new legislation is installed.

The Democratic Alliance has still not officially recognised its defeat, but pro-Alliance deputy, Marcelo Duarte stated “the change we were expecting in Paraguay will have to stay on the waiting list for a while.”