Juan Natalicio González
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Juan Natalicio González Paredes (September 8, 1897 - 1966) was President of Paraguay from August 15, 1948 to December 30, 1948.
Natalicio González was born in Villarrica in the department of Guairá on September 8, 1897. Having lost his parents, he moved to Asunción, Paraguay's capital, in 1912 to finish his high school studies. In 1915, he graduated from the Colegio Nacional de Asunción (Asunción's National College), and planned to study medicine in the Universidad Nacional de Asunción (Asunción's National University). But in that same year, the government decided to shut down the medical school of the UNA. Meanwhile, Natalicio started developing a career as journalist a writer. This was the end of his formal education, but he achieved an outstanding intellectual level through a very disciplined self education.
Very soon he started to associate with some of the intellectuals of the Colorado Party, the opposition party at the time. His links with people like Juan O´Leary, Fulgencio R. Moreno, Antolín Irala, among others, made possible for him to achieve prominence in the party's structure and propaganda machinery. Very soon he became the main writer for some newspapers, linked to the Colorado Party, like Patria, Colorado and El Pais. At the same time, he published some books on poetry, politics and historical essays.
In 1920 he move to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he worked for a major publishing company. The company's duties allowed him to travel all over South America and start making touch with politicians, writers and intellectuals from different South American countries.
By 1923 he moved to Paris, to work within a Paraguayan publishing company. He spent two years in Europe, returning to Paraguay at the end of 1924.
Once he returned to Asunción, he started to develop a more dynamic political activity within the Colorado Party. He started to reach higher positions inside the Party's structure and, by 1926, he was already in a position to be one of the leading party members to participate in the negotiatiations for a new electoral law with the Liberal government.
Unfortunately for the Colorados, the negotiations with the Liberal government became a source of division within the Colorado Party, which split up in two: the "abstencionistas", who were reluctant to negotiate anything with the government and supported abstention as a method to channel popular discontent against the government in order to provoke a pacific revolution, and the "eleccionistas" who responded positively to the government's calls for a political ceasefire. Natalicio was one of the main and most dynamic leader of the "eleccionistas".
Finally, by 1927, the new electoral law passed and was applied for the first time in the parliamentary elections held in the beginning of that year. The "eleccionista" Colorado Party won some positions as minority in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. New Colorado senators were mostly former ministers and intellectual leaders during past Colorado governments, while in the Chamber of Deputies, the Party managed to include new young and bright figures, mostly teachers and journalists, who were developing new political ideas according to the new era. Natalicio was the leader of these group, and acted as minority leader during his tenure as congressman.
In 1928 he married Lydia Frutos, a well-known Paraguayan socialite. Lydia was famous for her beauty and also for her high intellectual level, having graduated from educational institutions abroad. In 1929 Natalicio asked for the Chamber's permission to travel to Europe with his wife. Apparently he was not satisfied with the way Paraguayan politics were going and was starting to get disillusioned about the possible political benefits the Colorados were going to get from participating in parliamentary work while the Liberals were still the ruling party.
He came back to Asunción and to the Chamber in 1930.
| Preceded by Juan Manuel Frutos |
President of Paraguay 1948 |
Succeeded by Raimundo Rolón |
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