Nicanor Duarte Frutos
Nicanor Duarte Frutos was president of Paraguay from 2003 to 2008, the last of the Colorado Party's sixty-one unbroken years. He was the journalist and education minister who won the election of April 2003 with thirty-seven per cent on a promise to clean the state that González Macchi had left. His five years were the recovery. There were the growth back to four per cent on the soya boom, and the IMF agreement of 2003 and the tax reform that went with it. The fiscal deficit was turned into a surplus for the first time in memory. The customs and the tax office were purged of their most famous thieves. The supreme court's judges were impeached and replaced. That was either reform or the capture of the court. There was the Mercosur quarrel with Brazil and Argentina over the Itaipú and Yacyretá electricity prices. There were the American marines admitted in 2005 for exercises, which the neighbours minded, and the peasant occupations of the soya estates, which his police cleared. The end was the re-election question. The constitution barred it, he wanted it. The party gave him its presidency in 2006 while he was the country's. The court found that incompatible and he held it anyway. The quarrel split the Colorados between his candidate Blanca Ovelar and Oviedo, who was out of prison and standing. The former bishop Lugo won the election of April 2008 with forty-one per cent. The party that had governed since 1947 lost. He was born in Coronel Oviedo, the son of a policeman. He was a radio and newspaper journalist, studied law, and was education minister under Wasmosy and González Macchi, where he introduced the reform that put the Guaraní language in every school. He was appointed ambassador to Argentina by Cartes in 2013. He is a senator for life in the seat the constitution gives ex-presidents, and the party's elder against Cartes's machine. That is not a position that carries much weight.
- Lived: 1956 CE – ?
- Nationality: Paraguayan
- Roles: president, journalist, politician
