Alfredo Stroessner
Military dictator of Paraguay from 1954 to 1989 · Paraguay · On the map · Politicians · Lived 1912 to 2006 · aged 93
He held Paraguay for thirty-five years through rigged elections, banned opposition, and state terror administered by military police who doubled as secret enforcers.
Busiest day 7 Nov
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A life in dates
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Stroessner took power on 4 May 1954 in a coup backed by the Colorado Party and the army, then won an unopposed election that August after all rival parties had been banned since 1947. He suspended constitutional and civil rights immediately, deploying the army and military police as secret police to crush opponents through violent repression. Though opposition parties were nominally legalized in 1962, he kept winning through electoral fraud from 1958 through 1988. The 1967 Constitution permitted his re-election; changes in 1977 let him rule indefinitely. On 2 and 3 February 1989, his trusted confidant Lieutenant General Andrés Rodríguez Pedotti overthrew him. Stroessner went into exile in Brazil on 5 February, died there on 16 August 2006, and was buried while his Colorado Party continued ruling Paraguay through the same clientelistic networks he had built.
