Security & Strategic Review - May 2013 (ISSN 1741-4202)

The very day Horacio Cartes was being elected as Paraguay’s new President, the guerrillas of the Ejército del Pueblo Paraguayo (EPP) carried out a raid in the north-eastern department of Concepción which, had it succeeded, would have dealt a strong blow to the outgoing government’s claims that the EPP was on its last legs. The outcome was predictable: Cartes has reiterated his campaign promise to deal more decisively with the EPP than either the impeached former president Fernando Lugo (2008-2012), or his successor, President Federico Franco.