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Montevideo, March 29th 2024 - 13:04 UTC

 

 

Incumbent candidate leading...

Wednesday, March 26th 2003 - 21:00 UTC
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Paraguay's incumbent presidential candidate is leading and has even increased its distance from other hopefuls for the coming April 27 general election, according to the latest opinion poll published this Sunday in the Asunción press.

Nicanor Duarte Frutos from the ruling Colorado Party figures with 31,1% vote intention, four points ahead over a month ago, followed by Pedro Fadul from the independent movement, Patria Querida, that jumped from third to second place.

Mr. Fadul displaced former vice-president César Franco from the main opposition party, Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico who actually dropped from 24,7% to 24,2%.

Other candidates have begun loosing strength as the election begins to polarize among the leading options.

Mr. Fadul is the candidate with most support in the capital Asunción and the Central Department, the country's main electorate circumscriptions and where he has 34,2 and 33,1% support, while Mr. Duarte leads in the rest of the country (mostly rural) with 34%.

Next April 27 the Paraguayan electorate will be choosing caretaker president Luis González Macchi successor, a new Congress (45 Senators and 80 Deputies), and the local authorities of the country's 17 Departamentos (counties).

Paraguay is in the midst of a deep institutional and financial crisis following political and social unrest, the collapse of the banking system and spill over effects of the Argentine meltdown.

Record traffic congestion

Over 3,000 trucks loaded with soybeans, corn and wheat are waiting to reach the port of Rosario on the Paraná river, causing a monumental traffic jam in this city with a 1,5 million population.

Rosario is Argentina's main cereal exporting port and this year 42,5 million tons, 80% of the country's grains, oil seeds and sub-products will be shipped from its wharfs, a 2% increase over last year and 6% over 2001.

Although the problem is not new, rather recurrent when harvest time, the successive record crop years of Argentina and lack of new infrastructure have worsened the situation.

However the current disruption of Rosario's traffic and in the main accesses to the city is not over, at the end of March the first trucks of a record soybean harvest will begin attempting to reach port facilities.

Three new frigates for the Chilean Navy

The Chilean government officially announced it was convening an international bid for the building of three new frigates for the Navy. Apparently fifteen countries will be bidding and in the second half of 2004 the name of the winner will be known.

Defence Minister Michelle Bachelet pointed out that this was the "beginning of the international bid" adding that for the moment no costs or timetable have been described although "we know that the decommissioning of the current units will be taking place in ten, twelve years time".

Minister Bachelet insisted that Chile was not shopping for war, but rather for peace, "we must renew our fleet to keep up with not only with our national and maritime commitments but with international conventions".

The Defence Minister made the announcement during her participation in the opening of the school year in the military academies.

Last December Chilean president Ricardo Lagos authorized the acquisition of the former Royal Navy frigate HMS Sheffield, at an estimated cost of 10 to 15 million US dollars.

Although HMS Sheffield is fourteen years old it will become the newest unit of the Chilean Navy surface fleet of three destroyers and three frigates with an average age of 32 years.

In January 2002, President Lagos cancelled, for budget reasons, the "Trident Plan", the Chilean Navy's project to jointly build with Germany four frigates at an estimated cost of 950 million US dollars.

Categories: Mercosur.

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