Paraguay Elections and Dubya
Presidential elections in Paraguay will be held this Sunday and the winner may be the candidate of the opposition coalition party, Fernando Lugo, ending 60 years of one party rule by the Colorado party within this landlocked South American country.
As reported in The Guardian:
"A former Catholic bishop popular with the poor is favoured to win Paraguay's presidential election on Sunday and sweep away six decades of one-party rule.
"Opinion polls give Fernando Lugo a narrow lead, which could be enough to usher him in as the newest member of Latin America's 'pink tide' of leftist governments.
"The bearded 57-year-old heads the Patriotic Alliance for Change, a coalition of centre and centre-left opposition parties, grassroots political movements, farmers groups and other social organisations.
"Lugo has promised to give peasants more land and to charge Brazil more money for the power it imports from the Itaipu hydroelectric plant, which both countries jointly own.
"But he told the Guardian he was determined to tackle corruption and social exclusion.
" 'The gap between rich and poor is a scandal for Paraguayan society – it's a gap in which the few live at the banquet table while those at their side live in hunger.'
" 'Lugo is somewhat of a spokesman for those who don't feel included in the power structure or economy. If that means he's a leftist, well then he is, but he's not a leftist ideologue,' Alvaro Caballero, a political analyst, told Reuters.
"The Vatican, fearing a throwback to the 'liberation theology' era of troublesome, leftist priests, has suspended Lugo. But the Pope is reportedly keen on cordial relations should its rogue former cleric prevail.
"The Colorado party, the world's longest-ruling party still in power, has responded to the mood for change by fielding a female candidate, Blanca Ovelar.
"A poll by Coin published in the newspaper Ultima Hora gave Lugo 34.5% and Ovelar, a teacher-turned education minister, 29.5%. A third candidate, Lino Oviedo, a retired army general, polled 28.9%. There is just one round and whoever is first past the post wins.
"The ruling party's grip on state machinery and the tightness of the race have stoked fears of vote rigging. The Organisation of American States, a pan-regional body, said the election would test Paraguay's institutional credibility."
"The Colorados combine a well-deserved reputation for entrenching social injustice with an electoral machine skilled in the maintenance of elite power. Its weapons include control of a bloated state bureaucracy and pervasive use of corruption...
"Against such resources, Paraguay's main opposition party - the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA) - has found it difficult to compete.
"In the 1990s, however, there was opposition from another source. A strong social movement then arose in rural areas to protest against the growing land shortage for poor farmers.
"The several hundred families who compose [the] elite and control Paraguay - fresh from their luxury second homes in the beach resorts for the region's super-ricos - have in the past had little reason to consider the plight of their poor (notional) compatriots, who are at the sharp end of the second most unequal distribution of income and wealth in the region after Guatemala."
"Such was the disillusionment with traditional politics that when an ex-bishop, Fernando Lugo, led a March 2006 march and rally in Asunción to protest at alleged violations of the constitution by President Nicolas Duarte Frutos, he was immediately catapulted to the national political arena."
If Lugo wins, wonder if Bush will sell his rumored 100,000 acre spread in Paraguay?
From a 2006 article in The Guardian, "...if you are a resident of northern Paraguay and believe reports in the South American press that he has bought up a 100,000 acre (40,500 hectare) ranch in your neck of the woods.
"Erasmo Rodríguez Acosta, the governor of the Alto Paraguay region where Mr Bush's new acquisition supposedly lies, told one Paraguayan news agency there were indications that Mr Bush had bought land in Paso de Patria, near the border with Brazil and Bolivia.
"Last week the Paraguayan news group Neike suggested that Ms Bush [Jenna] was in Paraguay to 'visit the land acquired by her father - relatively close to the Brazilian Pantanal [wetlands] and the Bolivian gas reserves.'
"The US presence in Paraguay has been under scrutiny since May 2005 when the country's Congress agreed to allow 400 American marines to operate there for 18 months in exchange for financial aid.
"At the time many viewed the arrival of troops as a sign that Washington was trying to monitor US business interests in neighbouring Bolivia, after the election of Evo Morales, a leftwing leader who promised to nationalise his country's natural gas industry."
Heaven forbid Dubya should own acreage in a country whose possible next president is a populist who wants to tackle corruption and the gap between rich and poor.
As reported in The Guardian:
"A former Catholic bishop popular with the poor is favoured to win Paraguay's presidential election on Sunday and sweep away six decades of one-party rule.
"Opinion polls give Fernando Lugo a narrow lead, which could be enough to usher him in as the newest member of Latin America's 'pink tide' of leftist governments.
"The bearded 57-year-old heads the Patriotic Alliance for Change, a coalition of centre and centre-left opposition parties, grassroots political movements, farmers groups and other social organisations.
"Lugo has promised to give peasants more land and to charge Brazil more money for the power it imports from the Itaipu hydroelectric plant, which both countries jointly own.
"But he told the Guardian he was determined to tackle corruption and social exclusion.
" 'The gap between rich and poor is a scandal for Paraguayan society – it's a gap in which the few live at the banquet table while those at their side live in hunger.'
" 'Lugo is somewhat of a spokesman for those who don't feel included in the power structure or economy. If that means he's a leftist, well then he is, but he's not a leftist ideologue,' Alvaro Caballero, a political analyst, told Reuters.
"The Vatican, fearing a throwback to the 'liberation theology' era of troublesome, leftist priests, has suspended Lugo. But the Pope is reportedly keen on cordial relations should its rogue former cleric prevail.
"The Colorado party, the world's longest-ruling party still in power, has responded to the mood for change by fielding a female candidate, Blanca Ovelar.
"A poll by Coin published in the newspaper Ultima Hora gave Lugo 34.5% and Ovelar, a teacher-turned education minister, 29.5%. A third candidate, Lino Oviedo, a retired army general, polled 28.9%. There is just one round and whoever is first past the post wins.
"The ruling party's grip on state machinery and the tightness of the race have stoked fears of vote rigging. The Organisation of American States, a pan-regional body, said the election would test Paraguay's institutional credibility."
"The Colorados combine a well-deserved reputation for entrenching social injustice with an electoral machine skilled in the maintenance of elite power. Its weapons include control of a bloated state bureaucracy and pervasive use of corruption...
"Against such resources, Paraguay's main opposition party - the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA) - has found it difficult to compete.
"In the 1990s, however, there was opposition from another source. A strong social movement then arose in rural areas to protest against the growing land shortage for poor farmers.
"The several hundred families who compose [the] elite and control Paraguay - fresh from their luxury second homes in the beach resorts for the region's super-ricos - have in the past had little reason to consider the plight of their poor (notional) compatriots, who are at the sharp end of the second most unequal distribution of income and wealth in the region after Guatemala."
"Such was the disillusionment with traditional politics that when an ex-bishop, Fernando Lugo, led a March 2006 march and rally in Asunción to protest at alleged violations of the constitution by President Nicolas Duarte Frutos, he was immediately catapulted to the national political arena."
If Lugo wins, wonder if Bush will sell his rumored 100,000 acre spread in Paraguay?
From a 2006 article in The Guardian, "...if you are a resident of northern Paraguay and believe reports in the South American press that he has bought up a 100,000 acre (40,500 hectare) ranch in your neck of the woods.
"Erasmo Rodríguez Acosta, the governor of the Alto Paraguay region where Mr Bush's new acquisition supposedly lies, told one Paraguayan news agency there were indications that Mr Bush had bought land in Paso de Patria, near the border with Brazil and Bolivia.
"Last week the Paraguayan news group Neike suggested that Ms Bush [Jenna] was in Paraguay to 'visit the land acquired by her father - relatively close to the Brazilian Pantanal [wetlands] and the Bolivian gas reserves.'
"The US presence in Paraguay has been under scrutiny since May 2005 when the country's Congress agreed to allow 400 American marines to operate there for 18 months in exchange for financial aid.
"At the time many viewed the arrival of troops as a sign that Washington was trying to monitor US business interests in neighbouring Bolivia, after the election of Evo Morales, a leftwing leader who promised to nationalise his country's natural gas industry."
Heaven forbid Dubya should own acreage in a country whose possible next president is a populist who wants to tackle corruption and the gap between rich and poor.
Posted by Kaz at 4/18/2008 2:30 PM 
Categories: Opinion, Bush, Global Engagement, elections, Economics, Foreign Policy, Bushites
Categories: Opinion, Bush, Global Engagement, elections, Economics, Foreign Policy, Bushites
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