In 2025, a series of large-scale protests in Paraguay exposed serious structural problems in the country’s governance. In the one year since the start of the administration of President Santiago Peña, who has been in office since 2023, there have already been four major protest movements. According to protesters and human rights organizations, freedom of expression and other civil rights have sharply deteriorated since the current government took power. In addition, several incidents have revealed links between high-ranking government officials and organized crime.

Paraguay is witnessing a clear erosion of democracy. Some observers argue that corruption scandals, severe inequality, social discontent, and a lack of freedom of expression have led to the worst political situation since the country’s democratization in 1989.

This article briefly explores the historical background that led to the current crisis, and then analyzes the backsliding in areas such as freedom of expression, minority rights, social conditions, and political accountability.

National Pantheon of the Heroes, Asunción (Photo: Gilmar Mattos / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0] )

Historical background

The formation of the Paraguayan state has been profoundly shaped by colonial rule, war, dictatorship, and institutional fragility.

A wide variety of Indigenous peoples lived in what is now Paraguayan territory for many years, and their languages and social systems helped shape the region’s identity. Their languages and cultures remain clearly visible today, with Guaraní in particular deeply rooted in Paraguayan society. In the 1530s, Paraguay came under Spanish colonial rule. Leaders of the Guaraní, partly in an effort to protect themselves from other hostile Indigenous groups, formed alliances with Spanish settlers. Over time, intermarriage between the Guaraní and Spanish settlers became widespread.

The descendants of these unions between Indigenous people and colonial settlers came to be known as “mestizos.” They were gradually integrated into the colonial system, while other Indigenous peoples in Paraguay became minorities. Over time, tensions grew between the mestizo population and other Indigenous communities. The mestizo majority increasingly exploited the labor and land of Indigenous groups, leading to the rise of a powerful class of rural landowners. Indigenous communities were marginalized, dispossessed of their land, and pushed to the fringes of the country’s political and economic base, that is, pushed aside.

In the early 19th century, Napoleon’s invasion of Spain began to weaken Spanish rule in Paraguay. As the legitimacy of colonial domination crumbled across South America, Paraguay declared independence in 1811. However, independence did not resolve the internal divisions between social and ethnic groups within the country.

War, militarization, and political instability

After independence, Paraguay fought a devastating war against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay over regional power and territory in South America. This conflict later became known as the War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870). The war devastated the country, costing Paraguay up to half of its total population. This led to widespread territorial losses, destruction of infrastructure, and massive war debts.

To generate revenue, the government then sold vast tracts of public land to foreign investors and corporations, particularly buyers from Britain, Argentina, and Brazil. As a result, large-scale landholdings concentrated in the hands of a small group of landowners, deepening inequality in land ownership. Much of this land overlapped with areas traditionally inhabited by Indigenous peoples, further heightening the grievances of Indigenous communities who had been historically dispossessed during and after the colonial period.

From 1870 to the early 1930s, political conflicts between parties repeatedly destabilized civilian rule and drew the military into politics. These confrontations frequently escalated into uprisings and armed clashes, which were often resolved only through military intervention. Through this political pattern, the armed forces became the ultimate arbiter of power. The Chaco War (1932–1935) between Paraguay and Bolivia further entrenched the military as a central political actor and solidified a pattern of militarized governance.

The Stroessner regime and authoritarian rule

Within this context of militarized politics and weak civilian governance, General Alfredo Stroessner seized power in a 1954 military coup. His regime sought to maintain long-term political dominance by suppressing opposition and strengthening the role of the military in governance. Coming to power during the Cold War, his government justified repression through a staunchly anti-communist stance and by cooperating with other countries that supported his policies.

This included Paraguay’s participation in Operation Condor, a series of cross-border operations coordinated by multiple South American military regimes to eliminate leftist forces. During the Cold War, Stroessner’s government also received extensive political, military, and intelligence support from the United States, which viewed his regime as a strategically important anti-communist ally.

Under Stroessner, the security forces operated with near-total impunity. Large-scale land redistribution under the dictatorship institutionalized agrarian inequality and disproportionately harmed Indigenous and peasant communities. Small-scale farmers often lacked formal land titles, leaving them vulnerable to land grabs and state expropriation. Under Stroessner, millions of hectares of public land were distributed through state programs, but most of it went not to landless rural families but to military elites, political allies, and regime supporters.

General Alfredo Stroessner and Miss Paraguay, 1965 (Photo: Valenescribanoa / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0] )

At the same time, Stroessner promoted large-scale commercial settlement by Brazilians as part of his economic strategy. These policies intensified land inequality and brought about widespread land loss, repression, and forced displacement for peasant and Indigenous communities. Indigenous peoples remain the most marginalized population group in Paraguay, with around 140,000 people facing chronic poverty and institutional neglect.

In 1989, Stroessner was overthrown by General Andrés Rodríguez, a senior army commander and former ally. The coup took place amid growing divisions within the ruling party and armed forces, as economic discontent, corruption scandals, and succession struggles weakened Stroessner’s support. Changes in the international environment toward the end of the Cold War also reduced external tolerance for entrenched authoritarian regimes in the region.

Rodríguez then initiated constitutional reforms, which culminated in the 1992 Constitution and the 1993 elections. This marked the beginning of a formal transition to democracy. However, although the new constitution formally restored democracy, many state institutions were not thoroughly restructured after the dictatorship. Bureaucrats who had served under the previous regime retained influence within the judiciary, security apparatus, and public administration, limiting institutional renewal.

Organized crime and corruption in contemporary Paraguay

The development of stable democratic governance has also been hindered by the rise of organized crime. By the mid-2000s, owing to its geographic position between major drug-producing countries and other drug-exporting countries in South America, Paraguay had become one of the region’s hubs for organized crime. During this period, organized crime networks in South America expanded their operations as they became more transnational and diversified.

As law enforcement efforts intensified in Colombia and Mexico, drug-trafficking routes shifted and expanded, and Paraguay was increasingly used as a transit country. This trend has been particularly pronounced in the “Tri-Border Area” along Paraguay’s frontiers with Brazil and Bolivia. The region sees heavy daily commercial and passenger traffic, while effective inspection capacity is limited. Smuggling operations are further enabled by corruption and bribery among border and security officials along trafficking routes, undermining the effectiveness of enforcement.

Bolivian customs office near the Paraguayan border (Photo: hipaguasustudios / Wikimedia Commons [CC0 1.0] )

Part of the cocaine produced in Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia passes through Paraguay before being shipped to markets outside the region, such as Europe, often via Brazil or Africa. Paraguay is also a drug-producing country. It has been repeatedly identified by international drug-control bodies as a major producer of cannabis. The 2024 edition of the U.S. government’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report lists Paraguay among the world’s top five cannabis-producing countries.

Over time, these illegal economies have increasingly intersected with politics and state institutions, raising concerns about corruption and official collusion. Such concerns became particularly visible during the administration of President Mario Abdo Benítez (2018–2023), when allegations emerged that public officials were connected to organized crime networks.

In 2022, Paraguayan authorities seized assets worth an estimated US$100 million linked to organized crime and money laundering. The seized assets included luxury cars, mansions, ranches, farmland, businesses, bank accounts, and logistics companies used to launder and move drug money. According to media reports, senior government officials with connections to President Benítez were involved in the case. Recent investigations have also raised suspicions of drug-trafficking complicity within law-enforcement agencies, heightening public concern. In 2024, 40 police officers were arrested in connection with the country’s largest-ever seizure of cannabis, totaling 57,000 kilograms.

Paraguay’s current president, Santiago Peña, took office in 2023 at the end of Benítez’s term. Since Peña’s election, perceptions of corruption have worsened, according to Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). Although there was a move toward democratization after the overthrow of Stroessner in 1989, corruption, repression, and organized crime have remained part of Paraguay’s historical legacy.

Police car in Encarnación (Photo: Horacio Cambeiro / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY-SA 4.0] )

Social inequality, land rights, and public health

Crime and corruption are likely symptoms of broader social problems facing Paraguay. The Global State of Democracy (GSoD) framework reported in its 2025 report that Paraguay ranks in the bottom 25 percent worldwide in the categories of “political equality,” “equality between social groups,” and “economic equality.” By contrast, it performs at a medium level in the categories of “rights, representation, and participation.” The report also notes that between 2020 and 2024, the country suffered a sharp decline on the “Effective Parliament” indicator, which assesses the legislature’s ability to oversee the executive, independently legislate, and operate without undue political interference.

Moreover, Paraguay’s governance challenges are closely tied to land inequality and the marginalization of rural peasants. Rooted in the legacy of the Stroessner regime, these issues remain largely unresolved.

For example, in 2005, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the Paraguayan government had violated the rights of the Yakye Axa Indigenous community. Their ancestral lands had been transferred to private ranchers during the Stroessner era, depriving them of access to their traditional territory. The court ordered the return of land and the provision of basic services, but implementation was significantly delayed. As a result, community members continued to face limited access to food, water, and health care while awaiting reparations.

In May 2025, the National Institute for Rural Development and Land (known by its Spanish acronym INDERT) warned that individuals participating in protests could lose access to land titling and regularization programs. Human rights groups expressed concern over the coercive practice of linking access to land rights with political obedience, pointing to broader structural problems of civil rights violations in Paraguay. They also accuse the justice system of favoring powerful landowners and failing to deliver fair resolutions in land disputes.

Paraguay also faces a severe situation in public health. Seven in ten people in the country lack health insurance, and many are forced to pay out of pocket for medicines, diagnostic tests, and treatment. Around US$4 out of every US$10 spent on health care each year comes directly from people’s own pockets.

Indigenous communities discuss environmental issues (Photo: 350.org / Flickr [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0] )

Amnesty International’s 2024 report notes that Indigenous communities often forgo medical care because of geographic isolation, poor infrastructure, and shortages of medicines. Paraguay also fails to meet the Pan American Health Organization’s recommended benchmark for public health expenditure, which is 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). These conditions are further exacerbated by persistent underinvestment in public health. According to the World Bank, Paraguay has historically been one of the South American countries with the lowest ratio of public health expenditure to GDP.

Public investment has been limited not only in health care, but in rural development more broadly, despite high levels of rural poverty and extreme concentration of land ownership. Indigenous communities continue to face structural disadvantages not only in access to health care, but also in education and land rights. Although some of the past democratic shortcomings have improved to a degree, the social inequalities produced over centuries remain far from fully addressed.

Freedom of the press and democratic backsliding

Even the democratic gains achieved since 1989 now appear increasingly under threat. In recent years, civil society organizations, journalists, and protest movements have faced tighter legal restrictions, police pressure, and political intimidation. This environment, often referred to as “civic space,” reflects the degree to which citizens can organize, speak freely, and participate in public life.

In the classification used by the global civil society alliance CIVICUS’s report, Paraguay’s civic space has been “restricted” at least since 2018. This means that civil society groups and activists are confronted with legal, political, and practical constraints. The classification indicates that while civil society continues to exist, it operates under constant pressure. Protests are formally allowed but are often heavily policed, restricted, or criminalized. Journalists and activists frequently face harassment and legal threats, and laws are used to regulate or stifle civic action.

A major turning point for Paraguay’s civic environment came with the enactment of Law 7363/24 in November 2024. The government presented this law as a measure to improve transparency and accountability among non-profit organizations. It introduced stricter reporting rules, mandatory registration, and penalties for non-compliance. However, civil society organizations and international watchdogs warned that the law’s vague language could enable selective enforcement against organizations engaged in political advocacy, human rights work, and investigative journalism in particular.

President Santiago Peña (Photo: Governo do Estado de São Paulo / Wikimedia Commons [CC BY 2.0] )

The shrinking of civic space is most visible in the treatment of journalists. Between November 2024 and April 2025, there were numerous incidents involving threats, intimidation, physical attacks, and judicial harassment targeting reporters. In 2024 alone, 33 violations of press freedom were recorded in Paraguay, including censorship, arbitrary detention, stigmatizing rhetoric by public officials, and physical violence.

Journalists have been injured during police operations, threatened by sitting members of Congress following investigative reports, and subjected to legal actions aimed at silencing their work. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has documented cases of journalists killed in Paraguay, at least two of which in recent years are linked to organized crime. However, 90 percent of attacks on journalists remain unresolved.

Conclusion

Taken together, these developments point to a weakened democracy. Formal institutions still exist, but the legacy of authoritarianism, inequality, and impunity continues to shape state power and leave citizens vulnerable. Without meaningful institutional reforms, Paraguay risks falling into a cycle in which protest becomes the primary form of political participation, while the root causes of democratic backsliding remain unaddressed.

Writer: Mohammad Istiaq Jawad

Graphics: MIKI Yuna

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