From Paraguayan jail to the presidency?

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The return of a jailed former general and coup plotter has roiled Paraguay’s fragile political world.

Ecstatic supporters greeted Lino César Oviedo this week after he left a penitentiary outside Asunción, the capital. A military tribunal sprung the charismatic military man from his 10-year term for his part in an attempted 1996 coup.

As a colonel in 1989, Oviedo played a key role in ending the 35-year reign of former Paraguayan strongman Alfredo Stroessner. The tiny country has maintained a shaky democracy since.

Oviedo has vowed to govern Paraguay one day. He is widely expected to be a candidate in April’s presidential elections. After his release, he led supporters and journalists on a jog near a religious shrine, despite the tropical heat. ‘Enough, my general,’ moaned one exhausted follower.

Some question his legal status as a candidate. But not Oviedo.

‘I consider myself entitled to exercise my political rights to vote and be elected,’ Oviedo told ABC Color newspaper.

Pablo Amarilla in Asunción and Patrick J. McDonnell in Buenos Aires