Raúl Cubas
Raúl Cubas was president of Paraguay from August 1998 to March 1999, seven months. He was the engineer who was elected as the general Oviedo's proxy when the general was jailed and barred, whose slogan was Cubas in government, Oviedo in power. He fled to Brazil the day after his vice-president was shot dead in the street and the Congress voted to impeach him. He took office on 15 August 1998 with fifty-four per cent, the largest vote the Colorado Party had had in a free election. On 18 August, three days in, commuted Oviedo's ten-year sentence for the coup attempt of 1996 to time served and let him out. The supreme court found that unconstitutional in December and he ignored it. The seven months were the argument between the president who would not put Oviedo back in prison and the Congress, the court and his own vice-president Argaña, the leader of the party's other wing, who said he must. Argaña was ambushed in his car on the morning of 23 March 1999 by men in military uniform and killed with his bodyguard. The country assumed Oviedo had done it. The Congress impeached Cubas the same afternoon. The crowds filled the square before the Congress for four nights, the Marzo Paraguayo. On the night of 26 March snipers from the buildings around it shot seven of the young people dead. On 28 March he resigned and flew to Brazil, Oviedo to Argentina. The Senate president González Macchi took the office. He was born in Asunción, studied electrical engineering, and built a fortune in construction on the Itaipú works, as Wasmosy had. He was Wasmosy's finance minister for a year before joining Oviedo. Oviedo made him his running mate and then, when the court removed him, his replacement. He came home in 2002. He was tried for the March killings and acquitted in 2008. He lives in Asunción, the president whose seven months gave the country its constitutional martyrs and its habit of removing presidents in an afternoon.
- Lived: 1943 CE – ?
- Nationality: Paraguayan
- Roles: president, engineer, politician
