Óscar Nicanor Duarte Frutos is a Paraguayan lawyer, journalist and politician who served as President of Paraguay from 2003 to 2008. A member of the Colorado Party, he became the central figure of Paraguayan politics during his presidency.
The National Republican Association – Colorado Party is a conservative political party in Paraguay, founded on 11 September 1887 by Bernardino Caballero. Since 1947, the colorados, as they are known, has been dominant in Paraguayan politics and has controlled the presidency since 1948 –notwithstanding a brief interruption between 2008 and 2013– as well as having a majority in both chambers of Congress and departament governorships.
Paraguay's bicameral Congress (Congreso) consists of a 45-member Senate and an 80-member Chamber of Deputies. It serves as the legislative branch of the Paraguayan state.
Lino César Oviedo Silva was a Paraguayan army officer and politician, who was the leader of the National Union of Ethical Citizens, which split from the Colorado Party in 2002.
The Authentic Radical Liberal Party is a liberal and radical political party in Paraguay. The party is a full member of Liberal International. The liberales, as they are known, are the leading opposition to the dominant conservative Colorado Party. They have taken this position since the end of the Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship in 1989. They are the political successors of the Liberal Party, which traces its history back to 10 July 1887.
Luis María del Corazón de Jesús Dionisio Argaña Ferraro was a Paraguayan politician and jurist. A prominent and influential member of the Colorado Party, he was a Supreme Court judge, unsuccessfully ran for the Colorado Party's nomination for president in the 1993 election and eventually was elected Vice-President in the 1998 election, but was assassinated seven months after assuming office in March 1999 at a time when it appeared likely that he would inherit the presidency from Raúl Cubas, who was on the verge of being impeached. The incident and its aftermath is known in Paraguay as Marzo paraguayo. An airport in Paraguay, Dr. Luis María Argaña International Airport, is named for him.
Fernando Armindo Lugo Méndez is a Paraguayan politician and laicized Catholic bishop who was President of Paraguay from 2008 to 2012. Previously, he was a Roman Catholic priest and bishop, serving as Bishop of the Diocese of San Pedro from 1994 to 2005. He was elected as president in 2008, an election that ended 61 years of rule by the Colorado Party.
Sabino Augusto Montanaro Ciarleti was a Paraguayan politician. He served as Minister of the Interior between 1966 and 1989 in the government of Alfredo Stroessner. Montanaro was also the First Vice President of the Partido Colorado.
Carlos Alberto Filizzola Pallarés is a Paraguayan physician, labor unionist and politician who served as mayor of Asunción from 1991 to 1996, being the first one to be democratically elected. He later served four terms as senator, from 2003 to 2011 and again from 2012 to 2023, having been appointed Minister of the Interior in the meantime, under the presidency of Fernando Lugo. He was also the President of the Senate from 2005 to 2006 and the running mate of Domingo Laíno in the 1998 presidential election.
Pedro Efraín Alegre Sasiain is a Paraguayan politician, lawyer, and university professor, who served as president of the Authentic Radical Liberal Party from 2016 to 2023. For ten years he was the most prominent leader of the opposition to the Colorado Party, running unsuccessfully against its candidates in the presidential elections of 2013, 2018 and 2023.
Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara is a Paraguayan politician and businessman who is serving as president of the Colorado Party since 2023, having previously served as president of Paraguay from 2013 to 2018. Cartes owned about two dozen businesses in his Grupo Cartes conglomerate until he left the conglomerate in 2023, including tobacco, soft drinks, meat production, and banking. He was president of Club Libertad football club from 2001 until 2012, and president of the national team inside the Paraguayan Football Association during the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification. Between 2022 and 2023, he was classified as "significantly corrupt" and as a result subsequently subjected to economic sanctions by the United States, which accuses him of involvement in transnational crime and terrorist organizations.
Mario Aníbal Ferreiro Sanabria is a Paraguayan television host and politician. He was the presidential candidate of the centre-left coalition Avanza País in the April 2013 elections and received 5.88% of the vote.
On 31 March 2017, a series of protests began in Paraguay, during which demonstrators set fire to the Congress building. The demonstrations occurred in response to a constitutional amendment that would permit President Horacio Cartes to run for re-election, a move described by the opposition as "a coup". One protester was killed in Paraguay's capital, Asunción, after being hit by a shotgun blast by police. Several protesters, politicians and journalists, as well as police, were reported injured, including one lower-house deputy who had to undergo surgery after being injured by rubber bullets. On 17 April, President Cartes announced that he was resigning from any possible candidacy for a second presidential term. On 26 April, the Chamber of Deputies of Paraguay rejected the proposed constitutional amendment for presidential re-election.
The Marzo paraguayo was a political crisis that occurred in Paraguay because of the assassination of the then-Vice President Luis María Argaña on 23 March 1999. The opposition blamed the then-President, Raúl Cubas Grau, and also the strongman of Paraguayan politics of that time, Lino Oviedo, for the assassination. Argaña's assassination provoked a series of demonstrations by opponents and supporters to Oviedo and the Cubas government, which culminated in clashes in which seven demonstrators opposed to the government died, which resulted in the resignation of Cubas from the presidency.
Lilian Graciela Samaniego González is a Paraguayan pharmaceutical chemist and politician of the Colorado Party. She has been a member of the Senate of Paraguay since 2004.
Elisa Mercedes Ruiz Díaz Bareiro was a Paraguayan lawyer and diplomat. She was the Permanent Representative of Paraguay to the Organization of American States (OAS) from 2013 until her death. She served as the Chair of the OAS Permanent Council from 6 April 2021 to 19 May 2021.
General elections were held in Paraguay on 30 April 2023 to elect the president, vice president, National Congress, and departmental governors. The incumbent president Mario Abdo Benítez and vice president Hugo Velázquez Moreno, both of the Colorado Party, were ineligible for re-election.
Paraguayo "Payo" Cubas Colomés is a Paraguayan politician and media personality known for what some see as provocative publicity stunts. A lawyer, he served one term in Congress from 1993 to 1998 as a member of the center-left National Encounter Party. In 2018, Cubas was elected to the Senate as a sole member of the National Crusade Movement but was suspended for outbursts and physical altercations with Senate colleagues.
María Soledad Núñez Méndez is a Paraguayan civil engineer and politician. She was the candidate for vice president of Paraguay for the Concertación political alliance in the 2023 general elections as the running mate of Efraín Alegre, losing to both Santiago Peña and Pedro Alliana of the Colorado Party in an electoral landslide.
La última obra is a 2023 Paraguayan thriller film directed and co-produced by Héctor Duarte who co-wrote the script with Mauricio Martínez and Sergio Colmán. It stars Martínez accompanied with Gina Benedetti, Sandra “Kúku” Flecha, Rodrigo Caballero, Jimmy Rojas and Ever Enciso. It is about a successful businessman who will have to face his past after a tragic event. It premiered on March 23, 2023 in Paraguayan theaters.
