Reply #17: ELECTIONS-PARAGUAY: Indigenous Woman on Course for Senate

[Judi Lynn]

ELECTIONS-PARAGUAY: Indigenous Woman on Course for Senate
By David Vargas

Credit:Movimiento Popular Tekojoja

ASUNCIÓN, Apr 17 (IPS) - An indigenous woman has an excellent chance of winning a seat in Congress for the first time in the history of Paraguay, in Sunday’s general elections.

Margarita Mbyvângi, a "cacique" or tribal chief of the Aché people, is second on the list of Senate candidates for Tekojoja (Equality), a leftwing movement belonging to the opposition alliance backing former Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo, the presidential candidate who is leading the polls.

According to the latest opinion polls, 7.8 percent of interviewees in different parts of the country plan to vote for Tekojoja’s senate list, which would secure at least two of the 45 seats in the upper house for the movement.

More than 2.8 million Paraguayans are registered to vote on Sunday, to elect the country’s president and vice president, 45 senators, 80 members of the lower house, 17 governors, 214 provincial lawmakers, and 18 members of the Mercosur (Southern Common Market) Parliament.

The presidential candidates are Lugo of the centre-left Patriotic Alliance for Change (APC), Blanca Ovelar of the governing Colorado Party, former general and coup leader Lino Oviedo, conservative businessman Pedro Fadul and several candidates representing smaller parties.

The aspiring indigenous senator is preceded on her party list by small farmer Sixto Pereira, one of the founders of the movement that first promoted Lugo’s candidacy, and the alternate would be Catalino Sosa, of the Mbya Guaraní people.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42028