Juan Carlos Wasmosy (born 1939) became president of Paraguay in 1993 after winning the country's first truly democratic elections.

At the age of 54, Juan Carlos Wasmosy, conservative in his politics and a long-time member of the Colorado party (which had ruled Paraguay continuously since 1947), took the presidential oath on August 15, 1993, Paraguay's first democratically-chosen president since the nation's founding in 1811.

After the fall of longtime dictator Alfredo Stroessner in 1988, Paraguay's politics had been stormy. Stroessner's successor, General Andrés Rodríguez, had pledged a fair election, but opposition candidates (notably Domingo Laíno of the Authentic Radical Liberal party and Guillermo Caballero Vargas of National Encounter) expressed concerns about irregularities. A nonpartisan agency that monitored the election, Saka, tried to carry out a separate vote count, but the state telephone company cut its phone lines and police in the capital of Asunción prevented Saka employees from...