Dictator by Popular Request

They used to say that all the clocks stopped in Paraguay in 1864. That was the year Argentina. Brazil and Uruguay ganged up on their small, landlocked neighbor in a grisly war that halved Paraguay's population to 250,000 and left only 14,000 males. Paraguay has made some progress since then: it now has a population of 1,800,000 and a gross national product of $198 million annually (equal to the annual sales of U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co.). It also has the last remaining old-style dictator in South America.

Last week, after nine years in power, General Alfredo Stroessner, 50, held "free" presidential elections in which women were allowed to vote for the first time, and an opposition candidate appeared on the ballot for the first time in recent memory. He took no chances of course; at some polling places there were only Stroessner ballots, and no opposition observers. Stroessner was elected to a third term by a 10-to-1 margin, which gives him a mandate to continue spending Paraguay's $45 million annual budget (buttressed by $9.8 million last year in U.S. aid) as he sees fit. Last year 33% went for the army and police force. 15% for education. 2% for public works. Stroessner grandly said that he would accept re-election "not because I wanted it, but because it was the request of the Paraguayan people."

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