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South America and South Atlantic Islands
Paraguay |
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Last updated: 5 January 2009 |
Country information
POLITICS
Presidential and Congressional elections were held in April 2008. Fernando Lugo, (Patriotic Alliance for Change), won the Presidency, beating the other two leading candidates by 10% (Ovelar) and 20% (Oviedo). His win ended 61 uninterrupted years of power for the Colorado Party. He took office on 15 August 2008.
Paraguay's Congress has a strong institutional and political role. The Liberal Party, allied with Lugo's APC, won 13 Senate seats. The Colorado Party won 16. The APC alliance won a total of 48 seats in the Lower House (Diputados). The Colorado Party won 30. These results give Lugo a secure base on which to govern, provided the APC coalition holds together. His support from within the loosely allied APC comes from a mixture of leftist movements and parties and a strategic alliance with the Liberal Party (centre right) the second largest political party after the Colorado Party.
Lugo was a Roman Catholic Bishop prior to the elections. His election campaign was notable for its appeal for a need for change and his key message of fighting corruption.
His domestic priorities include agrarian reform and addressing corruption, as well as streamlining the health and education systems. Internationally his top priorities are closer cooperation with Mercosur and to re-negotiate the agreement by which Brazil (Itaipu) and Argentina (Yacreta) built dams on rivers owned 50% by Paraguay. The then Stroessner Government agreed that, in return for bearing the cost of the dams, any energy not used by Paraguay would be sold to Argentina and Brazil at fixed cost based on a barrel of oil (i.e. early and late 1970s prices).
HUMAN RIGHTS
While the human rights situation in Paraguay has improved markedly in the past decade, concerns about the application of human rights in Paraguay continue. The welfare of prisoners, especially juvenile offenders, under-age conscripts and accusations of police heavy-handedness are of particular concern.
