BL: Paraguay Election Puts Colorado Party's Six Decade Rule at Risk
By Bill Faries
April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Paraguay's Colorado Party, the longest ruling political party in the world, faces a tight race in elections this weekend to maintain its 61-year grip on the landlocked South American country.
About 2.9 million voters will choose a successor to President Nicanor Duarte on April 20. The leading candidates in the seven-person field are the ruling party's Blanca Ovelar, former bishop Fernando Lugo and ex-general Lino Oviedo, who is backed by an offshoot of the Colorado Party.
Lugo leads in polls and doesn't need a majority to win. He has emphasized the importance of ending Colorado Party rule, criticized the economic gap between Paraguay's largest landowners and its poor majority, and promised to help ``regain energy sovereignty'' by charging Brazil and Argentina more for electricity from the country's dams.
``The central debate in Paraguay's election is about ending the hegemony that the Colorado Party has exerted for more than half a century,'' said Rosendo Fraga, a political analyst and pollster in Buenos Aires.
Economic growth of 6.4 percent last year hasn't been enough to satisfy voters in a country where nearly 36 percent live in poverty and 27 percent are underemployed, said former treasury minister Dionisio Borda. Agriculture accounts for about 40 percent of Paraguay's $9.1 billion economy, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development. Annual per capita income is about $4,700, the agency said.
`Great Challenge'
``The great challenge here is to make economic growth inclusive and generate more jobs,'' said Borda, an economist with the Center for Analysis and Diffusion of the Paraguayan Economy, in a phone interview from Asuncion.
A March 29 to April 1 poll published by Asuncion-based La Nacion newspaper said Lugo had 36.8 percent support, followed by Ovelar's 26.4 percent and Oviedo's 24.3 percent. No margin of error was given for the poll of 1,536 voters, published April 3.
Ovelar, 50, is a former education minister who fought a drawn-out race for the Colorado Party's nomination with former Vice President Luis Castiglione. She has emphasized her chance at becoming Paraguay's first female president and says she will promote micro-financing, deploy more police and create jobs with infrastructure projects, including the expansion of highways and a new international airport.
Bishop
Lugo, 56, resigned his position as a Roman Catholic bishop in one of Paraguay's poorest regions in order to run for president. After being ordained in 1977, the Church sent him to Ecuador. There, working among the poor in the Andes, he said he became a supporter of ``liberation theology,'' a strain of Christian thought that emphasizes political activism.
Duarte, 51, took office in August 2003 promising to reduce poverty and promote commerce with other members of the Mercosur trade bloc, including Brazil and Uruguay. He simplified the country's tax system, improved debt management and helped provide economic stability, said Sebastian Briozzo, an economist with Standard & Poor's in Buenos Aires.
``The Colorado party has been there forever, they have an impressive political machine and they've conservatively managed the economy,'' Briozzo said in a telephone interview. ``But they haven't proposed solutions for the biggest issues on the agenda.''
S&P has a sovereign debt rating of B on Paraguay, placing it in the same category as Jamaica and Belize.
From 1947 to 1962, the Colorado Party was the only legal party in Paraguay. One man, General Alfredo Stroessner, ruled the country from 1954 to 1989. The party stayed in power after the military coup that ousted Stroessner, who died in exile in Brazil in 2006 at the age of 93.
``Change is healthy for a country that has been under the same party for so long,'' said Borda. ``A new face will be good for the country.''
To contact the reporter on this story: Bill Faries in Buenos Aires at wfaries@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: April 17, 2008 23:01 EDT
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