• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Social-Christian Beloved Fatherland Party

The Beloved Fatherland Party (Patria Querida, or PQ) was founded as a social-Christian movement in 2001 by businessman Pedro Fadul. The product of mostly Catholic leaders, it lacks a firm ideological core. It mixes a center-right and business-oriented core with more leftist factions, and sometimes takes a populist stance on social issues to attract more support from the poor. Its followers are mostly urban professionals and middle class. Few of its leaders have long political experience, except a handful who transferred over from the National Encounter Party (Partido Encuentro Nacional, or PEN), a social-democratic party on the decline. PQ stresses anti-corruption and good governance as its driving themes. It is generally pro-U.S., but has occasionally shown a readiness to adopt, opportunistically, a critical stance with respect to President Duarte's policies toward the U.S. (e.g., on the visit of SECDEF Rumsfeld or military exercises with the U.S.) in pursuit of wider popular support.

In 2003, PQ surprised many political observers by placing third in national elections, only a few percentage points behind the Liberal Party. It has seven seats in the Senate and ten seats in the Chamber of Deputies. When President Duarte assumed power in 2003, PQ joined the other opposition parties in signing a pact with the Colorados to advance reform. As part of that pact, PQ alone supported the Colorado Party's successful bid to adopt tax reform legislation, incuding introduction of a personal income tax and other steps to advance formalization of Paraguay's economy. Much of the media and the opposition, however, characterized this law as harmful to the poor -- notwithstanding the fact that its most onerous provisions are directed at a relatively small circle of wage earners who can best be described as upper-middle class -- producing a backlash for PQ and its credentials with Paraguay's poor.

PQ's leaders were insistent on taking a long view to expanding their base and establishing their credibility. Considered an Asuncion-based party, they worked hard to establish a presence in the interior of the country. Whereas the Liberals and the National Union of Ethical Citizens Party (Union Nacional de Ciudadanos Eticos, or UNACE, Lino Oviedo's creation) were keen to form an alliance in a bid to challenge the Colorados, PQ remained intent on establishing its own identity and is disinclined to bet its future on an alliance with the Liberals, whom it regarded as guilty of many of the Colorado's same sins.