Weekly Report - 04 July 2013 (WR-13-26)

President-elect Horacio Cartes has taken a leaf out of Mexico’s President Enrique Peña Nieto’s book by signing a broad accord with four opposition parties to win congressional approval for a series of reforms. Cartes, who will take office on 15 August, praised the pact as “a clear sign of the maturity that Paraguay’s political class now offers”. Unlike Peña Nieto’s ‘Pact for Mexico’, however, Cartes’ reform agenda is not itemised in meticulous detail. Instead, it includes vague promises to combat poverty and corruption, the stated aims of most Paraguayan presidents, fuelling speculation that it was hastily cobbled together with other objectives in mind.