The Issues

The Issues:

Now that I’ve covered the three major candidates, I’ll move on to talk a bit about the main issues in Paraguayan politics. In the social realm, debates over abortion and gay rights are uncontroversial because of Paraguay’s conservative culture just like questions of environmental stewardship and foreign warmongering are dead on the spot because of Paraguay’s poverty. Even without these core issues that consume American politics, however, Paraguayans still find plenty to argue about and plenty of things over which to form many unique party platforms.

Security and Order
As I’ve already mentioned, the drastic changes in national and local security resulting from the power vacuum after the fall of the dictatorship have had a huge impact on Paraguay. For a nation accustomed over several decades to exacting law enforcement and firm authority, the current lack of security appears to be a blatant lack of government intervention and help. On a national scale, the problems are immense. In the north of the country, multi-millionaire thugs hire private armies to protect their drug-growing and drug-exporting estates in blatant defiance of the government’s drug laws. In the east of the country, a thriving black market of drugs and arms and every other international vice thrives because of government ineffectiveness and corruption. On the local level, too, it’s every man for himself in Paraguay. If you’re walking around at night, you can expect to get mugged. If you leave your house open, you can expect to get robbed. For that reason, no one is out on the streets after seven or eight at night and everyone keeps everything locked up all the time. Under the dictatorship, if your neighbor’s chicken laid an egg on your doorstep you returned the egg politely. Today, however, you can’t let your chickens loose without being afraid someone will steal them. People want their chickens to go free, though, and from the opinions I’ve gathered from many folks I’ve talked to, would pay the price of keeping quiet under another dictatorship to see it happen.

Itapu
Some thirty years ago under the order of the Stroessner dictatorship, Paraguay partnered with Brazil to build the Itapu Dam, until very recently the largest power-generating dam in the world. Because the project was funded by Brazil, Brazil called and continues to call all the shots in the management of the Paraguayan dam project. Paraguay, in turn, has continually gotten screwed by the deal; first because of al the Paraguayan land taken away by the flooding of the dam, and now by Brazil’s continued exploitation of the dam’s energy (all of Paraguay’s energy needs can be covered by only one and a half of the nearly dozen and a half power-producing turbines, so the rest of the energy goes at bare-minimum cost to Brazil).

Throughout the years since the completion of the dam, the Paraguayan government has come up with all sorts of failed plans to gain more control over the dam, making all sorts of unfulfilled half-promises along the way that have only managed to demonstrate more and more through the years the government’s complete ineffectiveness. What makes matters worse is that, while the dam could cover electricity nearly free of cost for all of Paraguay, the cost of electricity for normal Paraguayans is still very high. Thus, the ineffectiveness of the government in dealing with the Itapu project and the still-high cost of energy give many Paraguayans good reason to believe that the government is very corrupt with much of the money generated from the dam going into the private bank accounts of high-ranking officials. The project stinks with corruption, and the Paraguayan people are tiring of the decades-old smell.

Health Care
If I were Paraguayan, I certainly would never complain about the costs of health care in Paraguay. A visit to the doctor only costs about five dollars, and two cavities can be filled in by a dentist for about forty dollars. Worries about the rising costs of health care and sky-rocketing health insurance bills seem to me a world away in a place where monthly coverage costs about ten dollars. Still, though, I’m only an American who’s living in Paraguay; for the average Paraguayan health care is an important and costly necessity of life, sinking budgets and worrying families to no end. Thus, one of the political issues in Paraguay is health care. Paraguay’s next-door neighbor, Argentina, offers universal health care for all her citizens. I’m not sure how effective Argentina’s system is, but Paraguayans seem to idolize it as a utopian system where everyone’s health needs are taken care of by the government. This ideal, when coupled with the ineptitude of the Paraguayan government to provide the goods for really any one, makes health care an important and pertinent political issue.

Jobs and the Economy
Paraguay is a nation of immense possibility. The facts that the land is rich, the climate is useful for productivity, and the geographic location is next to Argentina and Brazil, the two largest consumer markets in South America, offer countless occasions for economic growth and achievement. One only needs to look at the model of success in Mennonite cooperatives and farms to realize to the immense economic possibilities in Paraguay. The reality, however, is that for many Paraguayans work is no sure thing. Living day to day means scraping by without any faithful work or means of providing for basic necessities. In our congregation of under one hundred members, for example, there are now at least a dozen able men (some with large families) who don’t have steady incomes. Even for those in good health and good mind, it is often difficult to find reliable work. Pay is low, the minimum wage laws are unenforced, and those that can find work are easily taken advantage of. The lack of jobs and stagnant Paraguayan economy is, to say the least, one of the greatest needs in this country and one of the political issues that touches many Paraguayan very closely.

Corruption
Corruption, finally and unequivocally, is the most serious issue facing the Paraguayan political system. The establishment has been established so long that its structures and systems have nearly rotted completely through, with nearly every Colorado statesman or stateswoman accused of everything from bribery to stealing government monies to drug trafficking. What makes things even worse is that the very system allows such crimes and abuses to go on abated, since it’s illegal in Paraguay to convict any member of the national Congress of a crime while in office. Thus, while the poorest of the poor go on struggling to make ends meet, the richest of the rich and those with connections in political power continue on without end stealing government money and taking part in underhanded government deals and even drug trafficking. For these reasons and so many more, the Paraguayan political system is in need of a lot of redemption.