Andrew Nickson is reader in public management and Latin American studies at the University of Birmingham Published on openDemocracy (http://www.opendemocracy.net) Paraguay: Fernando Lugo vs the Colorado machine By Andrew Nickson, Created 2008-04-20 06:32 A new school year in Paraguay and the return of the country's elite to Asunción after its collective flight from the capital's scorching heat mark the end of summer in this landlocked Latin American country. The several hundred families who compose this elite and control Paraguay - fresh from their luxury second homes in the beach resorts for the region's super-ricos - have in the past had little reason to consider the plight of their poor (notional) compatriots, who are at the sharp end of the second most unequal distribution of income and wealth in the region after Guatemala. There are signs, however, that 2008 is likely to be different. The elite's summer vacation coincided with an outbreak of yellow fever in a poor suburb of Asunción that has (at the time of writing) killed at least ten people. On 19 February there was widespread disorder as tens of thousands queued in vain to be vaccinated; the exhaustion of supplies epitomised the sorry state of the public-health sector. But it is in the political arena that a restive mood is being most acutely felt. Paraguay has been continuously ruled since 1947 by the Colorado Party, which on 13 January celebrated an unbroken sixty-one years in power. Now, however, a maverick candidate - Fernando Lugo, a former bishop in the Catholic church - has emerged to challenge its hegemony in the contest for the presidential elections on 20 April 2008. Will Paraguay experience the kind of electoral and political earthquake that its Latin American neighbours have undergone in recent years; or will the tide of social convulsion and political radicalism continue to bypass the region's most neglected (as well as second-poorest) land? Whatever the election's outcome, Paraguay is moving - in its own unique way - into the limelight. Also in openDemocracy on Paraguay: Isabel Hilton, "Alfredo Stroessner: revisiting the general [0]" (17 August 2006) The party's kingdom The Colorado Party's sustained period of rule divides neatly into two parts. The first was dominated by the dictatorial regime of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-89); the second has been characterised by a dismal democratisation process that has seen three bouts of military instability (in April 1996, March 1999 and May 2000); the assassination of a vice-president, Luís Argaña (in 1999); and the indictment on corruption charges of two former presidents, Juan Carlos Wasmosy (1993-98) and Raúl González Macchi (1998-99). Similar charges are likely to follow when the current incumbent, Nicanor Duarte Frutos, leaves office after the presidential election. The Colorados combine a well-deserved reputation for entrenching social injustice with an electoral machine skilled in the maintenance of elite power. Its weapons include control of a Page 1 of 5