Paraguay
24 Years After Its Recognition, UNACE Was Left Out of Congress and Retains Limited Party Weight
The force that emerged from Oviedismo went from being a key player in the Senate to losing all legislative representation in 2023. According to ABC Color, it still has more than 102,000 members, but little influence in national politics.
The National Union of Ethical Citizens (UNACE) was officially recognized on September 17, 2002, by the Electoral Tribunal of the Capital, Second Chamber. According to a reconstruction by ABC Color, that formal step consolidated the political separation of Oviedismo from the Colorado Party, after that current organized in the 1990s around Lino Oviedo.
According to the newspaper’s review, the party was born as the expression of a sector that had previously operated within the ANR and had taken shape after the political crisis triggered by the attempted coup against the government of Juan Carlos Wasmosy. ABC Color also cites historian Milda Rivarola, who defined Oviedismo as “a late fascism” and said it attacked republican principles and promoted intimidation structures.
In electoral terms, UNACE reached its greatest expansion in the 2008 general elections, when it obtained 336,763 votes for the Senate and won nine seats. In 2003, it had already secured 211,078 votes and seven seats, which had made it a force capable of tipping decisions in the Upper House.
The decline deepened after the death of Lino Oviedo in a plane crash on February 2, 2013, in the middle of the presidential campaign. That year the party fell to 90,640 votes and two seats in the Senate. In 2018 it dropped to 48,801 votes and kept only one seat. Finally, in 2023 it gathered 30,545 votes and was left without parliamentary representation.
ABC Color noted that, after Oviedo’s death, leadership fell to Jorge Oviedo Matto. During that period, allegations also weighed on the alliance with “Paraguay Alegre” in 2013 and later Oviedo Matto’s resignation from his seat over the “audios” case, in a case in which he was charged with influence peddling and later dismissed.
On the territorial front, the outlet indicated that in the 2021-2026 municipal term UNACE retained only two mayorships: Katueté and General Francisco Caballero Álvarez, in Canindeyú. At the same time, it stressed that the party had for years carried problems of transfuguism, with leaders who reached Congress through that force and later moved to the ANR.
Despite its electoral decline, ABC Color reported that UNACE still has more than 102,000 registered members, placing it among the parties with the largest number of enrolled supporters in the country. It also noted that Jorge Oviedo Matto announced his intention to run again for a Senate seat in 2028.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with assistance from artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not do its own reporting on this fact.
