After Horacio Cartes Is Hospitalized, a Power Struggle Looms

The Weekly Post | 03.03.26

Photo: Horacio Cartes Facebook

TOP STORY

Horacio Cartes undergoes emergency heart surgery

Paraguay’s powerful former president Horacio Cartes, 69, was rushed to a private hospital on Feb. 26 after suffering a severe spike in blood pressure, a serious heart rhythm issue, and a brief interruption of blood flow to the brain.

Doctors at the Sanatorio Migone in Asunción said that the tobacco and beverages magnate – who is also president of the governing Colorado Party (ANR) – had suffered a hypertensive crisis with convulsions and cardiac complications.

Expressions of concern came from across the long-ruling conservative political movement, including its dissident factions. President Santiago Peña said that “all our support and prayers” were with Cartes, while former president Mario Abdo Benítez wished him a “speedy recovery.”

On Feb. 28, Cartes was taken off sedatives and ventilator support, with doctors saying he was awake, stable, and showed no signs of brain damage. They said that he had been fitted with a pacemaker which was performing “excellently”.

After visiting him in the expensive private clinic, Peña said that “our prayers have been heard”.

He also asked the press and public to “leave aside hypothetical scenarios” in which Cartes would no longer lead the Colorado Party: a sprawling clientelistic machine with 3.3 million members – equivalent to half the national population – that has shaped the contours of Paraguay’s politics, economy and society for nearly 150 years. “We'll have Horacio Cartes for a while yet”, he added.

The conservative former leader was discharged on Monday to continue his recovery at home. Antonio Barrios, Cartes’s personal physician, said his improvement had been “rapid” and “exceptional” – but that he would require strict rest and ongoing medical monitoring before he could resume public duties.

A statement posted to Cartes’s social media channels thanked God, his family, doctors, fellow party members, and members of the public who had prayed for him. Photos or videos of Cartes during or since his hospitalisation have not been released.

THE POST TAKE:

Cartes’s delicate condition has conjured up a prospect familiar to the people of Venezuela, Mexico, and Iran in recent weeks: a succession struggle.

Cartes, it’s true, lacks the fanatical religious following of the late Ayatollah Khamenei, the sweeping territorial control of slain narco kingpin El Mencho, or the gangs of armed enforcers once wielded by captive Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro.

Especially since the Biden administration accused him of alleged mass corruption and slapped him with visa and banking sanctions — dropped last year by the Trump White House — Cartes’s followers have been at pains to paint the former Club Libertad boss as a God-fearing public servant and legitimate business figure.

Welcome back to The Weekly Post, your essential briefing on all things Paraguay.

Also in this issue:
Paraguay braces for blowback from Iran · Eastern region militarised · $1.3bn bond issue · Yerba mate sales go global · Tebicuary River dries up · Asunción vs Dubai

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