| Juan Antonio Jara | |
| Office: | Vice President of Paraguay |
| President: | Bernardino Caballero |
| Term Start: | 25 November 1882 |
| Term End: | 25 November 1886 |
| Successor: | José del Rosario Miranda |
| Predecessor: | Adolfo Saguier |
| Office1: | Senator of Paraguay |
| Term Start1: | 1882 |
| Term End1: | 1886 |
| Office2: | Minister of Finance of Paraguay |
| Term Start2: | 12 August 1878 |
| Term End2: | 10 July 1882 |
| Successor2: | Juan de la Cruz Giménez |
| Predecessor2: | Cándido Bareiro |
| Office3: | Minister of Foreign Affairs of Paraguay |
| Term Start3: | 6 August 1877 |
| Term End3: | 9 July 1879 |
| Successor3: | Benjamín Aceval |
| Predecessor3: | Benjamín Aceval |
| Office4: | Minister of Justice, Religion and Public Education of Paraguay |
| Term Start4: | 14 August 1877 |
| Term End4: | 16 August 1877 |
| Successor4: | Adolfo Saguier |
| Predecessor4: | Bernardino Caballero |
| Office5: | Minister of the Paraguayan Supreme Court of Justice |
| Term Start5: | 1876 |
| Term End5: | 12 October 1877 |
| Office6: | National Deputy of Paraguay |
| Term Start6: | 27 February 1871 |
| Term End6: | 15 October 1871 |
| Term Start7: | 4 April 1876 |
| Term End7: | 1877 |
| Spouse: | Marcelina Martínez |
| Children: | Tomás Antonio Jara Martínez |
| Birth Place: | Asunción, Paraguay |
| Death Place: | Asunción, Paraguay |
Juan Antonio Jara Pereira (1845 - 21 July 1887) was a Paraguayan politician and lawyer; he was vice president of Paraguay between 1882 and 1886, during Bernardino Caballero's presidency.
Jara was born in 1845 in Asunción, from a family of landowners. He was sent to study in Paris[1] and returned only in 1869, after the fall of Asunción at the closing stages of the Paraguayan War. Soon after, he began to be active in the country's politics, to write for its newspapers, to do commercial deals on yerba mate and to work as a lawyer; besides all that, he was named Attorney General in 1870.[2] He would maintain that position until early 1871, when he was elected national deputy.[2] Congress was dissolved by president Cirilo Antonio Rivarola in October 1871, and in the next elections in November 1871 he either didn't run, or wasn't reelected.
Between March and October 1874 he was Attorney General for a second time.[2] In the second half of the 1870s, he was a deputy again, and then Minister of Finance and Minister of Foreign Affairs. Like the two Ministers of Finance that followed him, Juan de la Cruz Giménez and Agustín Cañete, he was accused of embezzlement during his stint at that ministry; Jara in particular had little operational knowledge of governmental finances when he took the position. He also was briefly named interim Minister of Justice in 1877, while he served a one year term as Minister of the Supreme Court.[3]
Though he was general Bernardino Caballero's vice president from 1882 onwards, and had been in his bloc since the early 1870s, after the election he soon went to the oppositionists, with whom he formed a minority in the Senate and tried to contest perceived corruption in the government; during his entire vice presidency, he also was president of the senate.[4] [5] It was thus that in the 10th of July of 1887 he was one of the founders of the traditional Liberal Party, rival to Caballero's Colorado Party. He died shortly after, in the 21st of the same month.[6] [1] [7]
One of Asunción's most important neighborhoods, Barrio Jara, is named after him, for he was the owner of most of the land that comprises it.