"Same person, same moment, various places"
While the country suffers from a remarkable level of corruption, the one institution that has proven itself willing to speak out against the impunity and corruption endemic to Paraguay's state and business interests in the country is the media.
ABC has taken care to detail massive voter fraud, such as: the registration of the same person in multiple districts, the sudden appearance of 10,000 voters on the registration of a town with nearly 0 voters last election and those new voters happen to all be from the ANR, the reigning Colorado Party.
Meanwhile, La Nacion reports that "The Executive releases the ghost of violence" -- that the current president, Nicanor Duarte, has started spreading rumors that former bishop Fernando Lugo has designs to plant bombs in bus stations this Sunday, during the elections. It's hard, from this distance, to see how any of these accusations are remotely credible to the Paraguayan public and clearly the media find these untenable, but whether it'll make a difference remains to be seen.
The Paraguayan armed forces made a formal statement yesterday that it would accede to the popular will of Paraguay, whatever the decision. How credible these assurances are, however, remains to be seen, as the country has a long history of intervention by its armed forces (one of the longest dictatorships in the hemisphere, coup attempts galore).
Clearly there are many Paraguayans concerned with: a) the ANR stealing the election and b) the military taking over if an unliked candidate (read: Lugo) wins. And if history is any guide, they have right to be concerned.
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