Will Paraguay's presidential election be a 'return to the past'?

Leading candidate Cartes is a member of the conservative Colorado Party, which ruled Paraguay for 61 years, until 2008. Last year the left-leaning president Lugo was impeached.

By Jonathan Gilbert,?Correspondent / April 19, 2013

A worker repairs an election banner featuring Colorado Party's presidential candidate Horacio Cartes, in San Lorenzo, Paraguay, Friday. Paraguayan voters head to the polls Sunday to elect a new president.

Jorge Saenz/AP

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Horacio Cartes smiles down on voters in Asunci?n from campaign posters promising a "new path" for Paraguay. But the frontrunner in Sunday's presidential election is accused of representing a return to the conservative policies of previous decades that perpetuated inequality.

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Mr. Cartes is a tobacco magnate who says he will modernize the Southern Cone nation. He is standing for the Colorado Party, which held a grip on power for 61 years before former President Fernando Lugo won elections in 2008. And with Mr. Lugo controversially impeached last year ? in what he called a parliamentary coup ? a shift back to right-wing policies is expected here.

Cartes' closest contender is Efra?n Alegre of the ruling Liberal Party. He is promising a "happy" Paraguay ? a play on his surname ? by tackling poverty. But, like Cartes, he is a conservative who observers say will favor business.

While Paraguay is expected to grow by 10 percent this year ? due in large part to soy and beef exports ? nearly a third of its people live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank. Such inequality is highly visible in Asunci?n, where sleek shopping malls contrast with slums that line the River Paraguay. More than 80 percent of land is controlled by two percent of the population, peasant movements here say.?Cartes and Alegre are expected to do little to change that, distancing Paraguay from the left-wing models of regional?neighbors?Argentina, Bolivia, and Venezuela.

"Paraguay is facing a step backwards," says Asunci?n-based political analyst Alfredo Boccia. "With both candidates we're looking at an absence of the state in an almost feudal economic model that responds to the interests of landowners and the elite. There will be macroeconomic growth, but an accumulation of poverty."

'Reverses in social reforms'

Polls give Cartes a lead of a few percentage points over Mr. Alegre, with Mario Ferreiro of left-wing coalition Avanza Pa?s a distant third.?Many people say they will vote for Cartes, a majority shareholder in more than 20 companies, because of his success in business. "He has [managed] his companies well, which will bode well for him in government," says Eva Amarilla, an information technology student.

But it is precisely Cartes' pro-business attitude that is expected to produce tensions if he wins. Lugo's ousting was provoked by the fatal eviction of peasants from land claimed by a Colorado Party senator. With Lugo's agrarian reform blocked in parliament by conservatives, Cartes would favor landowning elites. "Cartes will clash with the peasants," says?Jos? Mor?nigo, a pollster and former official in the Lugo government.

"The Colorado Party is not reformed," says Peter Lambert, a Paraguay specialist at the University of Bath in the UK. "With Cartes we can expect high levels of land and social inequality, and low-quality democracy with a politicization of the judiciary."?

Alegre also has the support of the private sector. Environmental groups say that the Liberal Party post-Lugo has allowed multinationals to fast-track new strains of genetically modified crops, fiercely opposed by peasants.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/6WtKtyxVAhE/Will-Paraguay-s-presidential-election-be-a-return-to-the-past

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