It’s election time. And with it comes yet another observation of just how similar we all really are. That is, if crazy counts as a similarity. One of the hidden brilliance’s of democracy must certainly be its ability to take people who otherwise could give a what (and will gladly tell you so) and for a few months every year make them adamant believers in things they don’t understand nor have any real desire to. Feels more like home everyday.

Here it’s the Colorados versus the Liberales/Azules (aka: the Reds versus the Blues – it’s an alien concept I know). Last Sunday the Colorados held their primary. Everyone marched or ox-carted their way to the ruta – in the freezing rain – to throw in their ballot. This Sunday the Liberales will do the same – the weather planned is yet more freezing cold rain. It maybe secret ballot but there’s certainly no hiding your affiliation – which is remarkable considering that in many places (and certainly no matter who you talk to), who you vote for today decides if you’ll be making a living tomorrow.

Paraguay’s been a democracy for a good while – the problem was, like so many of the South American democracies of the 20th century, there was always only one candidate on the ballot. This resulted in a 35-year long dictatorship that formally hung up its hat in 1989 (outlasted in the western hemisphere only by some guy in Cuba). But for the 19 years that followed, Alfredo Stroessner’s Colorado party continued to run the show. (It’s kind like ousting Fidel and continuing to cast a ballot for the commies). In 2008 the party’s 61-year long grip on power finally changed hands. Sixty-one years! Kinda makes it hard to feel the urgency of the mid-terms, eh. The winning candidate and former bishop Fernando Lugo (you may have read about his several illegitimate offspring in “This Week in International Political Gossip of Landlocked Backwaters”) won on a promise of cambio – or change. Seeing the graffiti of that slogan plastered all over the capital upon arrival was really kind of surreal. Needless to say, the similarities don’t end there. Cambio it turns out doesn’t happen overnight. And the electorate’s patience is mainly reserved for poorly-written telenovelas with plots as never-ending as they are ridiculous. The result being a president with waning popularity and an opposition eager to make a comeback if not example.

By the time all the propaganda filters down to the bottom (where I spend my days) the message of the situation is less then clear and the telenovela seems like a more and more appealing option every minute. Conversations about the most basic things become politicized and most folks seem legitimately convinced that the victor will determine their miraculous rise from the depths of poverty or their eminent plunge farther beneath it’s waves. They question me, seeing if as an outsider I understand. I tell them some things are just universal. Then I find out the election’s for mayor and immediately thank God I won’t be present for the general election, instead I’ll be safely back at home in a country that surely has sounder logic then to get worked up over such things….