Paraguay's Diplomatic Gamble Falls Apart

Inside the failed bid to lead the Organization of American States.

L-R: Santiago Peña, Luis Almagro, Rubén Ramírez Lezcano. (Agencia IP)

It would be fair to say that Saint Vincent and the Grenadines isn’t exactly a regional player. The economy of the remote Caribbean archipelago (pop. 110,000) is worth barely $1bn. Yet after the island nation was battered by Hurricane Beryl in July 2024, leaving 90 percent of the population homeless, help came from an unexpected quarter.

Faraway Paraguay — whose president Santiago Peña was meanwhile speaking of the need to restrain spending on hospitals and schools at home — chipped in US$25,000 to relief efforts. The eagle-eyed noticed a strange coincidence. The donation was announced soon after Peña confirmed that his foreign minister Rubén Ramírez Lezcano was in the running to become the next secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS).

Founded in 1948, the OAS is the Western Hemisphere’s most influential regional body. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., it provides Latin America, the Caribbean, the US and Canada — 33 countries in total — with a forum to resolve conflict, foster cooperation, and strengthen democracy within member-states. It disburses development cash, observes elections, and delivers health programmes through PAHO and justice via the Inter-American Court. And the race to lead the organisation — secretary generals are elected to a five-year term by an absolute majority, with each country getting one vote — has all the secrecy and drama of a papal conclave.

The stakes this year couldn’t have been higher. Outgoing secretary general Luis Almagro of Uruguay — who took an aggressive stance on democratic backsliding in Nicaragua, Bolivia and Venezuela — has long been accused of hewing too close the US. After years of dwindling funding, left-wing governments across the region saw an opportunity to revitalise the Cold War-era body, dial back its interference in member states, and concentrate on development and cooperation, including cultivating stronger ties with China. Their candidate emerged as Albert Ramdin, the foreign minister of Suriname and former OAS assistant secretary general (2005-15).

(Britannica via OAS)

The wind was in Ramdin’s sails from the outset. While Suriname is located on the northeast shoulder of South America, the former Dutch colony is historically, culturally and politically part of the Caribbean. An unwritten principle holds that the leadership of the OAS should rotate between the different regions of the Americas, and a figure from the Caribbean had never occupied it.

What’s more, the Caribbean’s 14 member states tend to vote as a bloc. With 18 votes need to win the race for secretary general, this means the Caribbean typically serves as kingmaker — despite contributing less than 1 percent of the organisation’s $100m annual budget. Yet at some point in the past year, the Peña administration read the tea leaves and concluded that Paraguay had a credible shot at the top job.