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This week I’m laying out the three main trends I’ve observed in Paraguayan politics in 2024. The news cycle seems to be accelerating: diplomatic scandals, a congressman shot dead by police, major cyberattacks, environmental disasters.
So it’s a useful exercise to take stock and see how a series of seemingly isolated events add up to a significant — and sometimes worrying — tendency.
1. Cartes and Congress vs Peña

Santiago Peña’s first full year in office demonstrated how the president is mainly the victim, not a shaper, of Paraguayan political realities. He repeatedly suffered blows to his administration’s credibility — and even outright efforts to sabotage government policy — by Horacio Cartes and his Honor Colorado faction, yet rarely mustered even the smallest public criticism.
2024 began with fresh revelations concerning endemic nepotism by the ruling Colorado Party. ABC Color revealed how half of Paraguay’s congress had found government jobs for partners, friends and relatives, costing the taxpayer $2.5m per year. Perhaps the defining image of the “nepobabies” scandal was the daughter of vice-president Pedro Alliana — notionally an advisor in the lower house of congress — tapping at a keyboard with immaculately manicured nails.
She was unable to answer basic questions from reporter Fiona Aquino about her role, how she justified her salary of G18m ($2300) per month despite having no university degree, and why she had been absent for weeks without leave.
Amid the rolling scandal, Peña made only the mildest rebuke on “ethical and moral” grounds. He talked up his planned reforms to hiring in the civil service (although congress, it later turned out, will be exempt). The proof that nothing has changed: in October, it emerged that Basilio “Bachi” Nunez, the all-powerful president of congress and cartista attack dog, had approved the hiring of 250 additional “advisors” with juicy salaries, vague responsibilities and all-too-familiar surnames.
There were other, more concerning examples. It’s an open secret that Peña was privately opposed to the expulsion of Senator Kattya González in February — more on that below — but was overruled by the quincho, the regular, extra-official gathering of senior Colorados at Cartes’s residence on Avenida España. In the second half of the year, a bicameral money-laundering committee headed by Senator Gustavo Leite launched a witchhunt (and leaked the details) of journalists and NGO workers.
In October, satisfied with a job well done, congress voted to give itself a 20% pay rise. From 2025, senators and deputies will receive roughly $5,000 per month (their compatriots lucky enough to earn minimum wage get $360). Peña waved it through with little comment, acknowledging “citizen frustration” but saying he was “grateful” to congress for approving his bills. And this month, SENAD minister Jalil Rachid — a close Cartes ally — cancelled a cooperation agreement with the DEA while Peña was mid-flight to France, only to walk it back amid fierce domestic criticism and a frosty response from US officials.
This situation is not entirely unique to Peña. Paraguay’s executive is weak and the legislature is powerful. Presidents can be impeached if two thirds of the senate agree. Lugo was removed within barely 24 hours in 2012, and Marito narrowly escaped being ejected on at least two occasions. Peña perhaps has more room for manoeuvre than commonly accepted: he substantially watered down the NGO law passed in November, even if Leite dubbed his changes boludeces (“bullshit”). The president has more or less ring-fenced “his” trifecta of economic institutions — the Central Bank, the MEF, the MIC — from cartista and Colorado wreckers.
And the relationship between Cartes and Peña is not as nakedly dictatorial as commonly imagined. The reality — as under Stroessner — is a sultanistic arrangement where different actors (Bachi, Leite, Beto Ovelar, Raúl Latorre, and grey eminence Juan Carlos “Kalé” Galaverna) jostle for favours from and influence over both men. But the upshot is a volatile environment for policymaking that creates damaging uncertainty among investors, international partners and Paraguayans themselves about where the country is headed — and who is really in charge.
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