MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Preparing for elections in Paraguay.

Ten presidential hopefuls registered for the coming general elections in Paraguay that will be held next April 27. Nine of them are described by the Paraguayan press as conservative or populist and just one belonging to the left.

According to the latest opinion polls the ruling Partido Colorado candidate, Mr. Nicanor Duarte Frutos leads followed closely by the main opposition Liberal Radical party candidate Julio César Franco.

The rest of hopefuls are quiet distant including popular "non-candidate" former General Lino Oviedo, who was banned for then years from the electoral roll and political activism after he was accused of involvement in a frustrated military coup and the killing of another Partido Colorado rival in 1996. He currently lives in Brazil where he was arrested after escaping from Paraguay.

The political campaign will officially begin February 25.

Paraguay, the weakest of Mercosur members has a long past of political turmoil and has only recently enjoyed an approach to democratic rule with free elections. However powerful groups linked to the Army and smuggling, under the umbrella of the Partido Colorado, continue to dominate the political scenario and the country is currently in the verge of default, following a financial crisis that virtually collapsed the banking system.

The current lame duck government is too weak to push through Congress any budgetary disciplining initiative that would enable the country to have access to multilateral assistance from the IMF, World Bank or Interamerican Development Bank, since Paraguay is black listed from private credit.

Caretaker president González Macchi last January just managed to avoid congressional impeachment given the proximity of the coming April general election. Mr. González Macchi is accused together with cronies of having emptied local financial institutions. He became world known for having purchased a luxurious BMW for the presidency that had been stolen in Sao Paulo, Brazil and smuggled to Paraguay. A month after taking office Mr. González Macchi purchased an apartment in Uruguay's renowned resort Punta del Este, paying a million US dollars cash.

His elected predecessor and a protégé of General Oviedo, was ousted of office following bloody rioting in the streets of the capital, Asunción, with dozens killed.