Agustín Cañete

Agustín Cañete García (31 December 1844 – 23 December 1902) was a Paraguayan politician. He served in various presidential cabinets through a political life which spanned more than three decades. Most famously, he was Minister of Finance of Paraguay three times; in two of these instances, he resigned from the position amidst accusations of corruption.

Early life
Cañete was born in 1844 to Juan de la Cruz Cañete, an officer in the army, and Ubalda García de Cañete, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia's illegitimate daughter. Francia was the dictator of Paraguay between 1814 and his death in 1840, and though his legacy was reviled in post-Triple Alliance War Paraguay, Cañete would through his life show some pride at being the dictator's grandson, coming so far as to challenging Argentinian ex-president Domingo Sarmiento to a duel when the latter wrote a piece critical of Francia in Asunción in 1887.

During his youth, he was sent to the prestigious Argentinian Colegio del Uruguay to study. In the 1860s, he fought in the Triple Alliance War, being an ensign by the battle of Curupayty, and a sergeant major at the end of the conflict; in the early years after the war, he joined the Decoudista Club del Pueblo party. He served as constitutionalist in the assembly which wrote the 1870 Constitution, and as congressman between the end of 1877 and 1878.

Work as Minister
In 1878 he was briefly named Minister of Justice, Religion and Public Education in Higinio Uriarte's cabinet after Adolfo Saguier resigned, but a few months afterwards José Segundo Decoud was named minister in his stead when Candido Bareiro became president. A few months before this he had been named President of Paraguay's Supreme Court, a position he would occupy again in the 1880s.

From president Bareiro's assumption of power in 1878 onwards Cañete's political relevancy grew, given that Bareiro, future president Bernardino Caballero and Cañete were allies. In 1885 he became Minister of Finance, taking the position after Juan de la Cruz Gímenez resigned, formally for health reasons, amidst various accusations of corruption. The ministry was widely known to be in bad shape administratively when Cañete took over, and its reputation improved somewhat during his term. While minister, he was an important advocate for the process of land sales conducted by the government in the 1880s onwards, which are a controversial topic even nowadays, as they served to concentrate land ownership rapidly and had a somewhat short-lived impact in the country’s finances; in 1887 he also was interim Minister of Foreign Affairs for some months, and helped found the long-standing Colorado Party. By 1888, he was widely accused by the country's media of embezzlement.

Afterwards, in the 1890s, he twice again occupied the Ministry of Finance, on the first time leaving after Cecilio Báez accused him of fraud in the process of closure of the Banco Nacional del Paraguay (of which he had been director). Nevertheless, he was still a strong figure amongst the Colorado Party, and in 1897 engaged in a power struggle with Segundo Decoud for the Paraguayan presidency, both of them belonging to Bernardino Caballero's wing of the Party - in the end, the Egusquicista Emilio Aceval was chosen to run, and thus elected; the choice of Aceval by the top echelons of the party made Cañete resign again from his post as minister.

Later years
In 1899 he became a senator of the republic. By this time he had also become an important investor in Paraguayan businesses, having large interests in enterprises such as the yerba mate giant La Industrial Paraguaya.

He died in Asunción in December of 1902.

In 1909, he was mentioned by name in José Segundo Decoud's suicide note, where he was classified as "López's secretary"; given the rest of the note, this very likely stemmed from their dispute for the presidency in the 1890s.