Today we woke up in a new country. The opposition’s land-slide victory in Paraguay’s general elections will end the Colorado Party's 61-year hold on power. It was almost surreal last night, to hear the candidates one by one concede victory to Fernando Lugo only three hours after the poles closed. Blanca Ovelar, the Colorado Candidate, appeared on T.V. in the deserted party headquarters to declare that opposition candidate Fernando Lugo's 10-point lead "irreversible" and that she would do nothing to steal his victory. After what seemed like an ungracious, foot-dragging delay, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, the current president, appeared before the press gathered in the conference room at the presidential mansion, and declared the transition would be a peaceful one.
This comes after months of despicable smear campaigns the likes of which the U.S. has not known, reports of vote buying, discovery of voter registries that had thousands of dead people on them, and rumors of other assorted fraud attempts and conspiracy theories about how the election would be rigged and assassination plots would be hatched—months of news that generally cast doubt on the possibilities for a change in government. Some of these reports seemed far fetched, however, that the government was preparing massive fraud, would otherwise intervene in the results to prevent a transition, or would perhaps just refuse to give up power, were not at all outside the realm of possibility and imagination. In a poll by La Nación, a Paraguayan daily, 88% of respondents thought that the ruling party could potentially interfere with a change of power.
I can only conclude that the opposition's victory was so large that it exceeded the Colorado's capacity for fraud at the polls, and that the upwelling of support and celebration so substantial that the ruling party could not stomach the discontent, violence, and chaos that ignoring or overturning the popular will would have provoked. The scene that unfolded last night before the monument that holds the remains of Paraguay’s national heroes in downtown Asunción was one for the history books. The crowd of thousands that gathered to celebrate the opening of a new chapter in Paraguayan history looked much like the other crowds that have marked this countries flawed political history: the throngs that materialized after the 1989 overthrow of dictator Alfredo Stroessner, the March Massacre protests that followed Vice President Luis Argaña’s Assassination and held off ex-general (and 2008 retrograde Presidential Candidate) Lino Oviedo’s coup attempt, and the massive peasant protests that—for better or for worse—prevented the privatization and pilfering of state property and enterprise. Only, the ambivalence and ambiguity that loomed above the heads of these earlier crowds was absent last night. A process that began by replacing dictatorship with “Stroessnerism without Stroessner” and a flawed regime that has gone by a variety of labels (from the relatively succinct “Competitive Authoritarianism” to the rather cumbersome “Sustained Civil-Military Control without Democracy”) ended in the fall of a once monolithic power and the conclusive expression of the popular will.
It will be very difficult and probably impossible for this government to live up to the enormous expectations generated by the historic defeat of the ruling party. But I really do believe the defeat matters on its own. Yesterday, Paraguayans lived in a country where it was impossible for the Colorado Party to lose an election; where, in order to secure employment, you needed to join the ruling party; where the state served the private interests of its managers and employees at the expense of the public good, where corruption was so rampant that holding any ambition was pointless. Today, while much of this may continue to be true for quite a long time, people no longer believe it is inevitable. As people begin to imagine Paraguay as a more democratic country and to see themselves as democratic citizens, their conception of the actions and behaviors that best serve their interests can change. I really believe that what we imagine ourselves to be part of and how we imagine the workings of society has a hold of its own on the political and economic realities we perceive and how we choose to respond to them. The possibility of electoral defeat introduces new kinds of strategic uncertainty into politics for political parties, politicians, and interest groups, and this uncertainty potentially opens up stretches of political space and opportunity for groups long excluded from the exercise of power. Nothing about this is inevitable. While I do feel the election results are an unambiguous good, much depends on how the mess of political and social actors respond to the uncertainty created by this shake-up, how the game to use this uncertainty to serve the different private, group, and public interests of these actors plays out, and how far the outcomes of this game goes toward creating more inclusive institutions and relationships.
This comes after months of despicable smear campaigns the likes of which the U.S. has not known, reports of vote buying, discovery of voter registries that had thousands of dead people on them, and rumors of other assorted fraud attempts and conspiracy theories about how the election would be rigged and assassination plots would be hatched—months of news that generally cast doubt on the possibilities for a change in government. Some of these reports seemed far fetched, however, that the government was preparing massive fraud, would otherwise intervene in the results to prevent a transition, or would perhaps just refuse to give up power, were not at all outside the realm of possibility and imagination. In a poll by La Nación, a Paraguayan daily, 88% of respondents thought that the ruling party could potentially interfere with a change of power.
I can only conclude that the opposition's victory was so large that it exceeded the Colorado's capacity for fraud at the polls, and that the upwelling of support and celebration so substantial that the ruling party could not stomach the discontent, violence, and chaos that ignoring or overturning the popular will would have provoked. The scene that unfolded last night before the monument that holds the remains of Paraguay’s national heroes in downtown Asunción was one for the history books. The crowd of thousands that gathered to celebrate the opening of a new chapter in Paraguayan history looked much like the other crowds that have marked this countries flawed political history: the throngs that materialized after the 1989 overthrow of dictator Alfredo Stroessner, the March Massacre protests that followed Vice President Luis Argaña’s Assassination and held off ex-general (and 2008 retrograde Presidential Candidate) Lino Oviedo’s coup attempt, and the massive peasant protests that—for better or for worse—prevented the privatization and pilfering of state property and enterprise. Only, the ambivalence and ambiguity that loomed above the heads of these earlier crowds was absent last night. A process that began by replacing dictatorship with “Stroessnerism without Stroessner” and a flawed regime that has gone by a variety of labels (from the relatively succinct “Competitive Authoritarianism” to the rather cumbersome “Sustained Civil-Military Control without Democracy”) ended in the fall of a once monolithic power and the conclusive expression of the popular will.
It will be very difficult and probably impossible for this government to live up to the enormous expectations generated by the historic defeat of the ruling party. But I really do believe the defeat matters on its own. Yesterday, Paraguayans lived in a country where it was impossible for the Colorado Party to lose an election; where, in order to secure employment, you needed to join the ruling party; where the state served the private interests of its managers and employees at the expense of the public good, where corruption was so rampant that holding any ambition was pointless. Today, while much of this may continue to be true for quite a long time, people no longer believe it is inevitable. As people begin to imagine Paraguay as a more democratic country and to see themselves as democratic citizens, their conception of the actions and behaviors that best serve their interests can change. I really believe that what we imagine ourselves to be part of and how we imagine the workings of society has a hold of its own on the political and economic realities we perceive and how we choose to respond to them. The possibility of electoral defeat introduces new kinds of strategic uncertainty into politics for political parties, politicians, and interest groups, and this uncertainty potentially opens up stretches of political space and opportunity for groups long excluded from the exercise of power. Nothing about this is inevitable. While I do feel the election results are an unambiguous good, much depends on how the mess of political and social actors respond to the uncertainty created by this shake-up, how the game to use this uncertainty to serve the different private, group, and public interests of these actors plays out, and how far the outcomes of this game goes toward creating more inclusive institutions and relationships.
The opposition's celebration last night in front of the Panteón de los Héroes in downtown Asunción. Photo: ABC Color
No comments:
Post a Comment