After 61 years in power, Paraguay ruling party faces defeat
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After 61 years in power, Paraguay's ruling party faces defeat
ASUNCION, Paraguay — For 61 years, the Colorado Party's recipe for holding on to power in this impoverished country has never failed.
First, the world's longest-ruling political party built an army of loyal supporters with a patronage system that obliterated any distinction between the government and the party. The Colorados then created a near-religious mythology that equated defying the party with treason. If all that didn't work, the party simply stole elections.
In the run-up to Paraguay's general elections this Sunday, however, the recipe no longer seems be working. Polls suggest that the Colorados will be ousted from power and that the new president will be former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, who was a political nobody two years ago.
It's an amazing turnaround for a party that's been in power longer than most people in this nation of 6.8 million can remember. A Lugo victory also would continue a regional trend that's seen leftist or outsider candidates end decades of rule by establishment elites, which in Paraguay includes the 35-year regime of dictator Alfredo Stroessner.
While many fear that the Colorado Party may once again cheat its way to victory on Sunday, expectations for change are so high that any revelation of fraud could ignite political chaos, including street violence, said analyst Alfredo Boccia Paz.
"There have never been distinctions between what's the party and what's the electoral system," Boccia Paz said. "On election day, it's like you're competing against the Paraguayan state if you're in the opposition. But there's a big fatigue factor now with all of this. There's a big demand for change."
The latest poll by the newspaper Ultima Hora found Lugo winning 34.5 percent of the vote, with the Colorado candidate, former Education Minister Blanca Ovelar, in third place with 28.5 percent. Paraguay has neither a run-off nor a re-election system, so whoever wins the most votes Sunday will serve one five-year term as president.
Public discontent with both the Colorados and the state of the country has fueled the party's misfortunes this year, polls show. Conflicts within the party also have crippled its electoral machinery.
Slightly smaller in area than California, this land-locked country is South America's second poorest, with about a third of its residents living in poverty.
The country also is known as a haven for fugitive Nazis, smugglers and drug traffickers, and it ranked in the 25th percentile of the world's most corrupt countries in an index compiled last year by the watchdog group Transparency International.
For poor Paraguayans such as Trifina Escobar, a housewife in the capital of Asuncion, more than 60 years of Colorado rule is to blame, and she said that many of her poor neighbors planned to vote for Lugo this Sunday.
"We are in bad shape, and we need change," the 59-year-old said. "We have people who don't eat, who are poor, poor, poor, people who live in tents.
"But Paraguayans are so stupid that if you give them just some sugar during election season, they stop being Paraguayans. They vote against their interests."
Lugo has captured disillusioned voters by playing up his story as a former bishop who worked for years in the country's poorest state and entered politics only after he was invited to speak at a massive anti-government rally in March 2006.
The 58-year-old declared his candidacy last year after he left the priesthood, and he's led in the polls ever since. He leads a coalition of parties, the Patriotic Alliance for Change that spans the ideological spectrum.
In a Friday press conference, he said that he'd try to renegotiate unpopular energy treaties with neighboring Brazil and Argentina and redistribute land more equitably to peasant farmers. He said that Paraguay, under his leadership, wouldn't "fall into submission to any other bigger country."
Seizing on such positions, critics have speculated that Lugo would ally himself with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other leftist governments that have denounced U.S. influence in the region. As a bishop, he was a proponent of the Roman Catholic Church's leftist Liberation Theology wing.
Lugo rejected such speculation, saying, "We believe in our own project with our own policies."
Sen. Juan Manuel Marcos, a leader of Lugo's coalition, said that fixing the country's corruption-saddled government would be a top priority for a Lugo administration.
"The size of Paraguay's economy is tiny compared to what it could be," Marcos said. "Nobody wants to invest here because there's no legal security here."
Colorado leaders also have promised change even as they defend current President Nicanor Duarte Frutos and decades of one-party rule.
Sen. Martin Chiola, a Colorado leader, pointed out that the country's economy grew by 6.4 percent last year, largely fueled by rising soybean exports, and he predicted more growth.
"The macroeconomic situation is good, and our house is in order," Chiola said. "We just need more social programs that can bring up people's quality of life."
Nonetheless, Chiola and other Colorado leaders have fretted about their party's chances on Sunday, and they've shifted the Colorados' political apparatus into high gear.
In Asuncion, thousands of public employees have hit the streets flying the party's crimson flag to show their support for Colorado candidates. The federal government commands a bloated bureaucracy of some 200,000 people, with the vast majority belonging to the Colorado Party.
The party also runs hundreds of neighborhood chapters that deliver government aid and even operate college dormitories that are open only to party members.
While attending a Colorado rally in the central Paraguayan town of Carapegua this week, security guard Carlos Ivarola said the party has always taken care of him and his family. Four years ago, the party even paid for a coffin and a funeral when his mother-in-law died.
"We will never change our party nor our church," Ivarola said. "It's unthinkable that we could lose."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/34161.html
Your time will come PAP.
49 years in power.
After Lee Kuan Yew dies, your turn is next.
You cannot escape your fate.
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LOL!!!!
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LOL
Hope at last?
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I wonder what is their demand for change in a country faced with corruption?
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Corruption comes in many shades and forms.
Most arrogantly ignored their illegal acts, while others are clever in protecting themselves by legislation - all are measured by the amount of money taken from the Treasury, with the amount obscenely unreal to the measured values of the society that they are part of.
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At least the payscale is legalised with benchmark taken from the aggregate of the top eight professions.
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If only......... those past dictators have all been smarter.
Those guys that have fallen like Marcos, Saddam, and Suharto - could have used their grip on their respective National Legislature to legalise their ''money grabbing methods'' from their respective National Treasuries.
They could have made themselves look more respectable by bench marking their greed from the Top 8 professions of overpaid CEOs, who are experts in bloating corporate treasuries by screwing the mass population of consumers.
.
.
And of course.... they should not forget to justify with good reason for the ''Big Grab'' by convincing the lowly paid citizens - that the big amounts grabbed is to prevent themselves from being corrupted by the huge amount of monies taken from the population.
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insider told me today LKY will call for a meeting with key ring leaders this week to analyse the collapse of Colorado Party's election in Paraguay. meeting center's on mistakes the party made and how to plug those loopholes in singapore.
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Leftist ex-bishop ends Colorado Party rule in Paraguay
ASUNCION (AFP) — Leftist former bishop Fernando Lugo won Paraguay's presidential vote Sunday, beating rival Blanca Ovelar by 39-33 percent and ending her Colorado Party's 61-year rule in government, according to official preliminary results.
Lino Oviedo, 64, a retired army chief who helped stage a coup that ended the 35-year miltiary dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner, trailed in third place with 21 percent, according to the Electoral Tribunal's Quick Preliminary Result Broadcast hotline (TREP).
Lugo, addressing jubilant supporters at his campaign headquarters, said the election showed that "the little people can also win."
"You are responsible for the happiness of the majority of the Paraguayan people today," he said as supporters chanted his name. "This is the Paraguay I dream about, with many colors, many faces, the Paraguay of everyone."
Exit polls earlier gave Lugo, 56, a 43-37 percent lead over Ovelar, 51, of the ruling Colorado Party who was vying to be Paraguay's first woman president. Oviedo had 16 percent, according to ABC/Nanduti radio.
There is no runoff vote in Paraguay.
Polling stations in this landlocked South American nation of six million people were open nine hours, in an election that also selected a new congress.
The left-leaning opposition spearheaded by Lugo, 56, who was suspended from his religious order by the Vatican in late 2006 for his entry into politics, had feared fraud would mar the vote.
But as 70 observers from the Organization of American States monitored ballot stations, electoral court chief Rafael Dendia said voting went smoothly.
Former Colombian President Alfredo Pastrana, one of the observers, said turnout in the election among the 2.9 million eligible voters was high: "it's going to reach 60, 65 and hopefully even 70 percent."
Lugo supporters began celebrating their anticipated victory setting off fireworks one and a half hour after polls were closed.
The Colorado Party has been in power since 1947, including 35 years of Stroessner rule from 1954 to 1989. Paraguay chose its first democratically-elected president in 1993.
Outgoing President Nicanor Duarte constitutionally could not seek re-election after serving a five-year term.
International Transparency, an organization monitoring for voter fraud, reported some cases of corruption.
"We've seen voting cards being bought and money going around in some polling booths," one of the group's observers, Pilar Callizo, told Channel 4.
"We also saw Colorado Party teams inside and outside some polling stations creating an atmosphere of intimidation," she added.
Lugo's opponents have said he is in line with leftwing presidents Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia.
But Lugo, while championing the rights of the poor, says he is more centrist as he seeks to overhaul a country with a per-capita income of just 1,900 dollars.
Ovelar, 51, a former education minister and the first woman to run for Paraguay's presidency, had asked voters to show her the same consideration as her male counterparts.
"If I lose the election, I will accept the result. But I ask for the same openness and the same objectivity as the other candidates," she said last week.
Oviedo was released from his last stint behind bars last September by a court that found he had been the victim of political persecution, leaving him able to pursue his long-held ambition of becoming head of state.
While Paraguay's formal economy relies on agriculture, corruption is pervasive.
Duarte made little headway in stamping out graft, which also sullied his own administration. Paraguay is a prime source of contraband electronics and cigarettes, most smuggled into neighboring Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia.
http://afp.google.com/article/
Won't be long now, People's Action Party.
It won't be long.
When Lee Kuan Yew dies, all bets are off.
Singaporeans won't stomach PAP's bullshit forever.
Their days are numbered.
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Why must wait til lky dies, die or no die it still the same, ppl want pap, it will stay, ppl dont want pap, it will go. it is the ppl who decide not lky
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But he controls the mainstream media and the mainstream media spreads pro-PAP propaganda.
How to be informed?
All state propaganda.
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Paraguay's president-elect reiterates hopes for establishing diplomatic ties with China
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/
List of countries with diplomatic relations with the ROC:
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“Bishop of Poor” Fernando Lugo Wins Paraguayan Election, Ending 61 Years of Conservative Rule
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/22/
South America unites against USA
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Iraq's gift to Latin America
Trying to figure out who won the Iraq war is a challenging parlour game. Nearly every faction, group and nation has lost. The only evident victors are Iran, the Kurds and a handful of giant American corporations.
It is slowly becoming clear, however, that there is another winner: Latin America. With the United States so totally consumed by the Iraq conflict, it has no time, energy or political capital to crack down on challenges south of the Rio Grande.
Sensing their historic chance, many Latin nations have embarked on experiments that the US would in past eras have instantly stepped in to crush.
The independence that many Latin American countries have shown in the last five years borders on outright defiance of US power.
Yet to a degree unprecedented in modern history, Washington is allowing them to do as they please...
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great news to here this happened. when is leegime PAP's turn?
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Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/5/11/
An interview with Greg Grandin
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What i want to see post-LKY era is the intevention of the U.S to overthrow the PAP Government and set up a new government.
Like as with the return of the British after the defeat of the Japs in WW2
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I will oppose USA's coups.
I will defend PAP regime if necessary.
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must be because the internet users in paraguay increase, then able to bring down the corrupted government.
or maybe after knowing that Chen Shui Bian won't be able to give any more money to Paraguay government, the ruling party lose support.
Paraguay change government already, Chen Shui Bian now must choose another country to flee to. -
ALBA Summit in Venezuela Responds to World Food Crisis and Bolivian Crisis
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3380
The US Role in Haiti’s Food Riots
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Latin America: the attack on democracy
Beyond the sound and fury of its conquest of Iraq and campaign against Iran, the world's dominant power is waging a largely unreported war on another continent - Latin America.
Using proxies, Washington aims to restore and reinforce the political control of a privileged group calling itself middle-class, to shift the responsibility for massacres and drug trafficking away from the psychotic regime in Colombia and its mafiosi, and to extinguish hopes raised among Latin America's impoverished majority by the reform governments of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia...
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/
John Pilger
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Latin America: A Race between Disaster and Reform
As time remorselessly moves forward through the second half of the twentieth century, a major problem for the United States is the fate of Latin America, that gigantic portion of the Western Hemisphere that is south of the Rio Grande.
It is not an area that can continue to be ignored, because it is neither small nor remote, and its problems are both urgent and explosive. Yet, until 1960, it was ignored.
The Latin America that demanded attention in 1960 was twice the size of the United States (7.5 million square miles compared to 3.6 million square miles), with a population about lo percent larger (200 million persons compared to our 180 million in 1960). Brazil, which spoke Portuguese rather than Spanish, had almost half the total area with more than a third the total population (75 million in 1960).
In 1960 Brazil reached the end of a decade of economic and population expansion during which its economy was growing at about 7 percent a year while its population was growing over 2.5 percent a year, both close to the fastest rates in the world. (The population increase of Asia was about 1.8 percent a year, Russia and the United States were less, while Europe was only 0.7 percent a year.) Brazil's rate of economic growth fell to about 3 percent a year after 1960, while its population explosion became worse, apparently trying to catch up with the Brazilian cost of living, which rose 40 percent in 1961, 50 percent in 1962, and 70 percent in 1963.
Except for its fantastic price inflation, Brazil's problems were fairly typical of those faced by all of Latin America. These problems might be boiled down to four basic issues:
(1) falling death rates, combined with continued high birthrates, are producing a population explosion unaccompanied by any comparable increase in the food supply;
(2) the social disorganization resulting from such population increase, combined with a flooding of people from rural areas into urban slums, is reflected in disruption of family life, spreading crime and immorality, totally inadequate education and other social services, and growing despair;
(3) the ideological patterns of Latin America, which were always unconstructive, are being replaced by newer, equally unconstructive but explosively violent, doctrines; and
(4) there is simultaneously an unnecessary spreading of modern weapons and a growing disequilibrium between the control of such arms and the disintegrating social structure and the increasing social and political pressures just mentioned.
Some of the more obvious consequences of these four problems might be mentioned here...
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“Welcome to the Axis of Evil”—Bolivian President Evo Morales to Paraguayan President-Elect Fernando Lugo
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parties come and go.
That is to be expected.
Only a matter of time.
No tyrant can duress time.
Time is their creator.
I hereby congratulate Paraguay and its people.
Long live Democracy!
Viva La Democrazi!!
Viva la People de Paraguay