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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Paraguay: A moderate changeFernando Lugo, a former Roman Catholic bishop, will be the next president of Paraguay. His election puts an end to more than six decades of Colorado party rule, a party historically allied to Washington and to the traditional economic elite. The new president Lugo is an ideologically swear enemy of the big capital. He had resigned from the church to champion the poor on the political stage, following the premises of the so-called liberation theology, an ideological stream popular in Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s. Unlike other countries in South America, his ideological zeal, however, may threaten the interests of some neighboring countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, countries that don't represent the center of the 'imperialist' West. More than that, moderate left governments rule both these countries. Paraguay is a poor country, in absolute terms and in relative terms too, compared to some of its neighbors. This isn't, of course, the main reason for the Lugo's victory. There is no strong correlation between the type of government and its political color, and the relative and absolute affluence of a particular country. Paraguay, so far, was rather an exception between the countries with relatively free political system; there was no rotation between left and right parties in office. As far as this problem is concerned, the Lugo's victory is a step in the right direction; it introduces an element of healthy democratic rotation. We can only hope that it won't be the only one. The reason for a change should be looked at the lack of national development in virtually any of the important indexes that make a country comparable within the community of nations. Miami-based Latin Business Chronicle puts the country in an unenviable position on basically any comparable index: global competitiveness, technological development, capital access, economic freedom, perception of corruption, political freedom, and general business environment. By all of these, Paraguay scores among the worst cases in Latin America. What's in the numbers is certainly within the people's minds; a nation that scores so low usually and finally gets rid of the old politicians. Fernando Lugo, the newly elected president, has to make a fundamental choice between two types of left politics, both present in Latin America, one based on convictions and another based on responsibilities, to use the old distinction made by the German sociologist Max Weber regarding the job of the politicians. So far the predictions are that he'll opt for a responsible policy, a kind of socially proactive, but moderate policy that we see developing in countries such as Brazil, Chile, and Argentina. Ironically, more radical policy will hurt not the big target of all leftist movements, the 'imperialist' West, but some of the Paraguay's neighbors, precisely those that are ruled by other moderate leftists. This makes a safe prediction about the moderate policy that we'll be seeing in Paraguay for the next years.
Paraguay country profile: --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Paraguay.
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