by Esteban Caballero*

As Paraguay prepares for general elections next year, the opposition is running on a platform condemning the corruption of the incumbent Colorado Party, but candidates so far have not articulated credible policies to weed out what is a deeply systemic problem.

• President Mario Abdo Benítez, whose five-year mandate (with no possibility of reelection per the Constitution of 1992) ends next August, has faced several challenges. His Colorado Party has had to manage the COVID pandemic and a series of climatic and economic headwinds that impeded the performance of the agro-exporting sector, the backbone of Paraguay’s economy. Although the country’s fiscal health is better than others in the region, public debt has risen, and pension subsidies have taken resources away from meaningful public investment projects.
• In July and August, the United States designated former President Horacio Cartes and Vice President Hugo Velázquez – also from the Colorado Party – as “significantly corrupt.” The news sent shockwaves through the body politic and fueled nationwide angst about corruption and, more seriously, the ability of organized crime to permeate government institutions.

Combatting corruption and organized crime has become the central theme of the opposition’s efforts to contest the governing party’s hold on power in the April 2023 elections for president and vice president, deputies, senators, and departmental governors and councilors. Preparing for primaries on December 18, a group of opposition leaders has created a coalition called Concertación Nacional 2023. Early polls indicate that Efraín Alegre from the Liberal Radical Authentic Party will win the primary. He shares the ticket with Soledad Núñez, an independent candidate for vice president.

• The opposition says that giving the boot to the Colorado Party and rebuilding government institutions will solve the problem. Still, analysis of the more prominent opposition leaders’ discourse signals the need to generate more substantive, programmatic proposals to counter corruption and narco threats. Whether this weakness is because they have no policy think tanks or an indicator of disregard for the policy debate in Paraguayan politics remains to be seen. In any case, the opposition appears poorly prepared to deal with the problems.
• The challenge is that the country faces two intertwined phenomena – the more traditional corruption linked to government procurement and personnel recruitment and the growing threat of sliding toward being a “narco-state.” Washington’s allegation against former President Cartes is that he “obstructed a major international investigation into transnational crime to protect himself and his criminal associate.” Narcos have killed several well-known local politicians. When model and influencer Cristina Aranda died in an accident in a shoot-out, it shocked public opinion. Nonetheless, the opposition is having difficulty harnessing that revulsion and delineating policies to stop Paraguay’s various forms of corruption.

The opposition’s promise to strengthen government institutions, preserve the rule of law, increase the proper functioning of the police, and reform the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Judiciary are laudable goals that will win support among its base and some fence-sitters. Undoubtedly, the Colorado Party is the party most at fault when it comes to condoning corruption and opening the gates to organized crime’s influence. Nevertheless, the opposition cannot only run on a negative campaign, and should ask itself how credible its discourse can be without specifics, especially if it comes from professional politicians who belong to parties, such as the Liberal Radical Authentic Party, that have also had corrupt elements among them when in office.

• Polls and media reports show that a significant contingent of the electorate continues to support the Colorado Party even if they agree on the need to stop corruption and organized crime. The opposition’s messaging in that context has to draw a fine line between holding the Colorado Party accountable and avoiding broad sweeps that may alienate many of those potential voters and that risks pushing them to consider change as a menace more than a form of deliverance.

* Esteban Caballero is a columnist and political analyst. He is the academic coordinator of the FLACSO Program in Paraguay and former regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the UN Fund for Population.

By Scott Freeman*

Though Haiti’s security, economic, and political crises have thrust the country into the most dire situation in recent memory, the Prime Minister’s call for foreign military intervention, if the UN complies, will continue a cycle of failed international meddling. The UN is discussing proposals backed by the United States and Mexico that would impose financial sanctions and an arms embargo on criminal actors in Haiti and authorize “a non-UN international security assistance mission to help improve the security situation and enable the flow of desperately needed humanitarian aid.” The mission would be led by an unspecified “partner country” with experience in Haiti.

Prime Minister Ariel Henry, serving as head of government with international support since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021, pleaded for assistance amid a precipitous rise in gang power in Haiti and unwavering calls for his resignation.

• Gangs control much of the country, in particular Port-au-Prince, and affect everything from the safety of children attending school to the movement of food. Several weeks ago, they seized the terminal where fuel enters the country, paralyzing transportation, the functioning of hospitals, and other essential services. Working towards both political and criminal ends, gangs came to power as political tools, used notably by the ruling PHTK party to squash opposition. Now they operate throughout the country. Human rights groups estimate that 90 gangs operate in the capital and have killed hundreds of citizens and terrified tens of thousands of others. UN specialized agencies reported last week that 4.7 million Haitians (about 40 percent of the national population) face acute hunger, including 19,000 who are in “Phase Five” famine conditions for the first time.

However, Henry’s call for an international security presence is deeply problematic.

• Named Prime Minister two days before Moïse’s assassination, Henry lacks a popular and constitutional mandate. Moïse blocked elections for mayors and national legislators and gutted the judiciary, consolidating power in his own hands. Henry is now the de facto leader of a country void of democratic checks and balances. During his year in power, Henry has done almost nothing to address the issue of gang violence. Protests have been occurring in the street regularly calling for his departure. The peyi lok (country lockdown) protests that started in late September ramped up in response to Henry’s removal of fuel subsidies – levying essentially a regressive tax perceived by Haitians across the country as a direct assault on the poor.
• Despite consistent and popular calls for his removal, the United States, Canada, and other countries’ support for Henry and the PHTK has endured, choosing “stability” over calls for a transitional government and democratic elections. Washington has largely ignored the Montana Accord, the product of a broad coalition of some 70 civil society actors across religious and political divides who proposed two years of coalition government followed by free and fair elections. In Washington, support for Henry has been challenged by 13 members of the Democratic Party in the Senate and House who wrote a letter to President Biden that points out Henry’s disinterest in democracy and stability, and urged the Administration to change its strategy, heed the Montana Accord, and move away from support for Henry.

Protesters have forcefully rejected Henry’s call – bolstered by UN Secretary-General Guterres – for a foreign security force “to stand with us and help us fight this humanitarian crisis.” The request has met stiff resistance in Haiti by groups that portray it as a blatant effort to keep himself and the PHTK in power. Others call the invitation to foreign troops treason and argue a foreign force would repeat the mistakes of the previous UN Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH, 2004‑17), which introduced cholera into the country, committed widespread acts of sexual assault and violence, and was widely seen as an occupier. A statue in southwest Haiti, for example, was erected to depict Haiti’s triumph over both cholera and the UN force.

• The strong rejection of this option from civil society groups like the Montana Accord and advocacy groups like Nou Pap Domi (We Won’t Sleep) bodes poorly for international actors that might think that yet another military deployment in Haiti would lead to a different result than the past catastrophic operations. As long as the “core group” of the international community keeps its thumb on the scale and gives free reign to leaders like Henry and predecessors who lack democratic legitimacy, democratic change will not occur. Truly breaking the cycle of interventions and the longstanding support of kleptocratic regimes would mean supporting the work of groups like the Montana Accord – which the United States and others have rejected. Henry’s request for a foreign military presence is therefore not a solution, but instead sows the seeds of another set of problems.

* Scott Freeman is an anthropologist and professor in the School of International Service.