By Xinhua,
Buenos Aires : Paraguay will hold general elections Sunday. Following are profiles of the three leading presidential candidates.
— Fernando Armindo Lugo Mendez, former Catholic bishop and presidential candidate for Patriotic Alliance for Change, a 22-party coalition, leads with 34 percent approval rating in the latest opinion polls.
He is the main challenger against Blanca Ovelar, a former education minister and candidate for the ruling Colorado party, which has governed the country for 61 years.
Lugo, called the “the bishop of the poor,” promises a corruption-free government, a land reform benefiting the poor and renewed negotiations with Brazil on a hydropower plant to bring more benefits for Paraguay.
— Blanca Margarita Ovelar de Duarte tied with National EthicalCitizens Union party candidate Lino Oviedo for second place in a recent opinion poll.
Paraguay’s first female presidential candidate, Ovelar vows to fight against corruption, promote industrialization and improve education at all levels.
She was the country’s education and culture minister from April2002 to July 2007.
— Former army commander Lino Cesar Oviedo Silva, candidate for the National Ethical Citizens Union party, has pledged constitutional reform allowing presidential reelection.
In 1989, Oviedo helped imprison General Alfredo Stroessner, putting an end to military dictatorship in Paraguay.
But he was accused by then President Juan Carlos Wasmosy of heading a 1996 coup, and went into exile in Argentina and then to Brazil.
He was imprisoned when he returned to Paraguay in July 2004. Though initially sentenced to a 10-year term, he was released in September 2007 and was cleared of the coup charge one month later.