MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paraguay elects president April 27

With just two weeks for the April 27 Paraguayan presidential election, ruling party candidate Nicanor Duarte Frutos leads opinion polls with 34% of vote intention followed by Liberal Party candidate Julio César Franco with 28% and an independent hopeful that musters 24%.

However and because of the grip of the Colorado party that has ruled landlocked Paraguay for over half a century, (with or without democracy), a dissident wing of the party could with its 10% of votes, still tip the balance with an unexpected outcome.

Although trailing in the opinion polls Mr. Guillermo Sánchez from the National Union of Ethical Citizens is the straw man for the powerful Colorado leader General Lino Oviedo exiled in Brazil and who has been a domineering figure of Paraguayan politics for the last twenty years.

General Oviedo had to flee to Brazil in 1998 (forced by Mercosur, United States and European Union diplomacy) after several coup attempts and his apparent involvement in the killing of vice president Luis María Argaña.

But this has not impeded General Oviedo from active participation in Paraguayan politics and in 2000 reached an agreement with the Liberals of Mr. "Goyito" Franco who then managed to be named vice president of Paraguay.

If Mr. Guillermo Sánchez and the Liberal Party can mend fences they could mathematically defeat the Colorado party candidate Mr. Duarte Frutos.

However in the run up to April 27 Mr. Sánchez and Mr. Franco, currently in hospital recovering from a strained leg in plaster, have publicly exchanged non complimentary language that has distanced the candidates and makes an understanding extremely difficult, ?unless General Oviedo from Brazil commands his disciplined group to scuttle the Colorado party candidate chances.

Time is running short, but in wild west Paraguayan politics everything is possible.

Paraguay is the poorest of Mercosur members, with an incipient democratic culture and still fragile institutions after decades of authoritarian rule.

Paraguay has been in the headlines not necessarily for its dramatic financial situation (non declared default), but because of Ciudad del Este, a city with a strong Arab population next to the Argentine and Brazilian border that United States has signalled out as a "nest of terrorist activists and supporters".