Page "History of Paraguay" Paragraph 126

Another major factor in Stroessner's favor was a change in attitude among his domestic opposition.

Demoralized by years of fruitless struggle and exile, the major opposition groups began to sue for peace.

A Liberal Party faction, the Renovation Movement, returned to Paraguay to become the " official " opposition, leaving the remainder of the Liberal Party, which renamed itself the Radical Liberal Party ( Partido Liberal Radical-PLR ), in exile.

In return for Renovationist participation in the elections of 1963, Stroessner allotted the new party twenty of Congress's sixty seats.

Four years later, PLR members also returned to Paraguay and began participating in the electoral process.

By this time, the Febreristas, a sad remnant of the once powerful but never terribly coherent revolutionary coalition, posed no threat to Stroessner and were legalized in 1964.

The new Christian Democratic Party ( Partido Demócrata Cristiano-PDC ) also renounced violence as a means of gaining power.

The exhaustion of most opposition forces enabled Stroessner to crush the Paraguayan Communist Party ( Partido Communista Paraguayo-PCP ) by mercilessly persecuting its members and their spouses and to isolate the exiled Colorado epifanistas ( followers of Epifanio Méndez Fleitas ) and democráticos, who had reorganized themselves as the Popular Colorado Movement ( Movimiento Popular Colorado-Mopoco ).