Paraguay: Struggle Begins Over Future Leader : Guessing Who Will Succeed Aging Dictator Has Become a National Pastime

In the autumn of Paraguay’s patriarch, a power struggle has begun.

Gen. Alfredo Stroessner remains firmly entrenched after his eighth preordained victory, in a tainted presidential election in February. But at 75, he cannot keep people around him from preparing for the day he is gone.

The question of succession has spawned a growing welter of scheming, maneuvering and jostling within his regime, now nearly 34 years old.

For the most part, it is a quiet and cautious struggle, and there are few signs of who might have the upper hand so far. Still, foreign and Paraguayan analysts genuinely agree on which main forces are contending.

Dynastic Hopes

First, Stroessner himself is still very much involved. He is said to harbor hopes of bequeathing power to his son, Gustavo Alfredo Stroessner, a lieutenant colonel in the air force. The hand-picked leaders of Stroessner’s Colorado Party probably would accept Gustavo, but the military high command is more likely to resist.

Other contenders in the struggle include younger officers at odds with the high command and a Colorado faction that was forced out of party power last year but has strong military ties.

On the outside looking in is an array of opposition political groups, the Roman Catholic Church and foreign powers. Together, they could complicate matters for the regime’s insiders by mounting a forceful campaign for democratic reform.

The outcome of the power struggle is the subject of a guessing game that has become the Paraguayan national pastime. Tentative predictions often are drawn from wishes and fears, speculation and fabrication. Anyone can play.

Two-Faction Fight

The struggle within the Colorado Party became public last year when two factions fought for control of a scheduled party convention. It was the Traditionalists versus the Militants.

The Traditionalists hark back to the days when the century-old party was not under Stroessner’s thumb, and some Traditionalists said openly before the convention that Stroessner should not be nominated for an eighth presidential term. The Militant faction, created by Stroessner, schemed to replace the Traditionalists in the party’s top leadership.

The dispute was public and bitter, indicating serious deterioration within the regime. Humberto Dominguez Dibbs, Stroessner’s former son-in-law and once a loyal yes-man, called the Militants “political eunuchs.”

Militants contend that the Traditionalists were obviously outnumbered at the August convention and decided not to take part. Traditionalists and independent witnesses, however, say Stroessner’s police guarded the doors of the convention hall and barred the Traditionalists from entering.

The packed convention nominated Stroessner for a new term as president and elected loyal Militants to the party chairmanship and three vice-chairmanships.

Longtime party chairman Juan Ramon Chavez, 86, sided with the Traditionalists and lost his job, along with a lot of other people. Chavez was replaced by Interior Minister Sabino Montanaro.

Angel Roberto Seifart, a Traditionalist leader, said that the takeover by Militants was the final milestone in a gradual conversion of the party into Stroessner’s personal vehicle.

As for what Stroessner’s Militants are planning for the presidential succession, Seifart said, the talk is limited to “rumors and speculations.” The Militants themselves steadfastly refused to openly discuss post-Stroessner plans.

“We don’t talk about the succession when the person is enjoying good health,” said Juan Benitez Rickmann, government undersecretary for information and culture.

Dictator’s Health Woes

Stroessner is known to suffer from troublesome gallstones, recurrent skin cancer and a circulation problem that has crippled his hands. While no one thinks his health is suddenly failing, it clearly is declining.

Some assume he is grooming his son, Gustavo, for power. According to one widely circulating but unconfirmed report, Colorado Militants are planning to amend the constitution so that Gustavo can become vice president.

Under Stroessner’s 1967 constitution, there is no vice president, and the presidential successor is the chairman of the senate.

Benitez Rickmann denied that any plan is in the works to create a vice presidency, but he did not rule out the possibility that the Colorado Party might one day choose Gustavo as its presidential candidate.

“What seems clear is that Stroessner would like to pass the mantle on to Gustavo, but Gustavo has not shown any sign of interest, and he and his father both know that it wouldn’t be looked on favorably by the rest of the armed forces,” said a foreign diplomat.

Gustavo, 43, is a pilot who specializes in flying C-47 transport planes. Tall and somewhat pudgy, he is reputedly shy and usually shuns publicity.

With no known command responsibilities in the armed forces, Gustavo’s main business is business. Informed Paraguayans say he is one of the country’s wealthiest men, the owner of numerous money-making interests that include one of the country’s two television channels and one of its biggest construction companies.

“He likes money,” said opposition leader Domingo Laino, head of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party. “There is not a business deal in Paraguay that Gustavo doesn’t have his hand in.”

Most high military officers also have lucrative side interests. It is a privilege of rank to profit from power, part of Stroessner’s system for maintaining military loyalty.

If Gustavo Stroessner were to replace his father as commander in chief of the armed forces, officers who outrank him presumably would have to retire. That is why generals are said to oppose Gustavo as a successor. Younger officers, on the other hand, might see Gustavo as their ticket to rise in the world.

Military-Party Ties

Since the beginning of the Stroessner regime, the military has had close relations with the Colorado leaders who are now called Traditionalists. The generals and the Militants do not see eye-to-eye.

Some analysts predict that the Traditionalists and the generals may collaborate in support of a military successor to Stroessner.

For a time last year, the government appeared to be easing some of its repressive measures. A state of siege, which had been in effect in parts of the country with only brief interruptions since Stroessner took power in 1954, was not renewed. Permits were issued for opposition political rallies, and several big ones were held without major interference.

After the Colorado leadership changed, however, police and armed thugs began breaking up opposition meetings.

Many of the thugs were identified by the opposition as members of the Anti-Communist Action Group, an organization headed by Justice and Labor Minister Jose Jacquet.

On election day, armed men in plainclothes abducted opposition leader Laino and three other members of his party, holding them all day. Laino said he presumed that the detention was to keep him from verifying electoral fraud.

According to opposition accusations, diplomatic reports and accounts by independent journalists, the fraud was widespread. Stroessner won with an official 89% of the votes cast, crushing the candidates of two small parties that tamely serve as the “legal” opposition.

The opposition is counting on supporting pressure from the increasingly restive Catholic Church and from the democratic governments of foreign countries, including the United States and neighboring Brazil and Argentina. But many opposition leaders do not expect such pressure to have much effect as long as Stroessner is alive.

Said Humberto Rubin, whose all-news radio station was shut down: “I believe he is going to die in the presidency.”

If Rubin is right, succession is the name of the game.

Long was recently on assignment in Paraguay.