[1] They were the first free elections in the country's 182-year history,[2][disputed – discuss] the first with no military candidates since 1928,[3] and the first since the adoption of a new constitution the previous summer.

[4] Juan Carlos Wasmosy of the Colorado Party won the presidential election with 41.8 percent of the vote.

Carter's team of international observers noted that opposition candidates tallied almost 60 percent of the vote between them.

[2] The elections completed a transition to full democracy in a country that had seen only two years of pluralism in its history before the 1989 coup.

Even after Stroessner lifted a three-decade state of siege in 1987, opposition parties and newspapers continued to be suppressed, often brutally.