POLITICS
Sebastián Acha
Paraguay
More than two-thirds of Paraguayans are under the age of 30. For Na- tional Deputy Sebastián Acha, that’s both an opportunity and a challenge. He believes his country’s technologically
aware and young population, combined with a growing economy, can
turn Paraguay into a regional model
for agricultural development, educational innovation and political transparency. In fact, the 2018 presidential
hopeful is building his political credentials on that belief.
Acha, 35, is a leading member of Paraguay’s new generation. He became
Paraguay’s youngest deputy when he
was first elected to Congress in 2003
from a party he helped create, Partido
Patria Querida (Our Beloved Nation
Party–PPQ). With his second-term victory in 2008, he remains one of the
youngest diputados in Paraguay’s history. And he is determined to change
Paraguayan politics.
Acha is currently leading an effort
to enable voters to elect members
of Congress directly, rather than by
party list. A bill pending in Congress
would “unlock” the listas sábanas
(closed lists) in parliamentary elections, increasing transparency and
the incentive to vote. The PPQ has
compiled over 74,000 signatures supporting the bill, and as of the end of
2011, the initiative was still being debated in the Chamber of Deputies.
MARIA BO
Acha has a record of driving political change. He previously collaborated on the automatic electoral
registration law, which establishes
a procedure for automatically registering a Paraguayan citizen to vote
when he or she turns 18—replacing
the former time-consuming and bureaucratic process in which citizens
had to sign up manually. The law will
potentially add 400,000 new voters
Innovators
The Next Silicon Valley? Sebastián Acha is promoting digital inclusion in Paraguay.
to the political system. (Although voting is compulsory in Paraguay, many
eligible voters had not registered before the law was enacted at the beginning of 2012.)
According to Acha, automatic voter
registration will save Paraguay’s government an estimated $45 million in
the next year by eliminating 17,000
temporary voter registration jobs.
Acha has proposed investing the
savings in the Paraguayan branch of
One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a U.S.-based nonprofit organization with
an eponymous mission and operations worldwide.
“We need to invest not just in education,” Acha says, “but in the implementation of ICTs [information
and communication technologies]”
that make education relevant to the
twenty-first century.
Acha was inspired to enter party
politics while he was a law student
at the Universidad Nacional de
Asunción. In 2000 he helped found the
organization Tierra Nueva (New Land)
to increase agricultural productivity
and diversify crops in the mostly rural
department of San Pedro. He recalls
meeting families who lacked access
to finance and public credit, and
observing how “politicians bought
and forgot [the rural poor] with ease.”
Hoping to use the savings gener-
ated by automatic voter registration,
and garnering the support of his PPQ
colleagues, Acha believes he can rep-
licate that success nationwide.
AMERICASQUARTERLY.ORG
27 Americas Quarterly WINTER 2012
