Good News for Paraguay

Latin America continued its bright political and social development with the election of Fernando Lugo last Sunday (20th). It would be facetious and fallacious to cast Lugo in the mould of other popular leftist leaders elected in the continent (like Lula and Bachelet) because this presupposition about Latin America and its politics is wrong: there are profound and complicated political and social differences between the countries and their political development has to be addressed on its own merits. Those who claim Lugo for another Chavez or Morales forget the former's significant middle class support. Instead, Lugo is a pragmatic social democrat - 'bishop of the poor,' undoubtedly, but not a radical in terms of economic policy and not an America hater - today, Lugo had a positive meeting with the American ambassador.
This is not to say Lugo's defeat of the Colorado party is without stormclouds. The politics of Paraguay have been intractibly, tragically and sometimes even hilarously corrupt for more than half a century - Lugo pledged to end this, but today his vice-president elect Frederico Franco was accused of being bribed $1 million by the U.S. to further their economic interests in the country. This does not bode well. Nor does Lugo's lack of a majority in parliament. The transition will be slow and painful. But the existence of left leaning parties coming to power democratically at this stage in nation's economic and political development need not fill people with alarm - this was exactly the case in Britain in the 1910's and 20's with a newly enfranchised working class that challenged existing political hierachies without overturning them. Current labour movements are generally less radical now, and democracy is more stable than then. Compare this to the backward politics of China and India, where democracy and liberal democratic ideas of political thought struggle against cultural and historical prejudice. Paraguay has achieved this week in political terms what the Chinese can only dream of.