Three million Paraguayans are registered to vote in the upcoming elections [AFP]

Paraguay, which has a population of just over six million, goes to the polls on Sunday in presidential and parliamentary elections.

The three million registered voters could bring in the country's first female president and remove the world's longest-ruling party.

Paraguay, they have elections?

They certainly do. Paraguay emerged from  35 years of military leadership under General Alfredo Stroessner in 1989 and elected its first civilian president in 1993. Stroessner had come to power in a coup in 1954.

So what's the set-up?

There is just one round of elections and the president, who heads the government, is elected for a single five-year term with no opportunity for re-election. Legislators are also elected for five-year terms.

No re-election, so who is on their way out?

The elections mark the end of Nicanor Duarte's presidency.

Duarte came to power in 2003 as the nominee for the Colorado party (ANR-PC), which - having backed Stroessner - has ruled Paraguay for 60 years.

And who is in the running for the presidency?

Lugo was a Catholic bishop, but was suspended because of his involvement in politics [AFP]

There are three main candidates.

Fernando Lugo, a representative of the opposition Patriotic Alliance for Change (PAC), who was a Catholic bishop until the Vatican suspended him for mixing in politics and challenging the presidency.

He entered politics in March 2006 when he organised a demonstration of 40,000 people to protest against the current government.

Lugo is a fan of Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, and other left-wing leaders and while he champions the poor his candidacy has troubled some business leaders.

But pre-election surveys show Lugo, who carries with him the hopes of some 20 leftwing parties and political movements gathered under the PAC umbrella, is the current favourite.

Oviedo is running for president after spending much of the past few years in prison [AFP]

Lino Oviedo, a 64-year-old one-time army chief, was part of the coup that overthrew Stroessner in 1989. He was the officer who personally received Stroessner's surrender.

He tried to run for president in 1998, but Juan Carlos Wasmosy, then president, had a court-martial sentence him to 10 years in prison for allegedly threatening another coup two years previously.

He was freed weeks later when his running mate won the presidency. But the assassination of the vice-president, a known enemy of Oviedo, caused the president to step down and Oviedo, under suspicion for ordering the killing, fled to Argentina and then on to Brazil.

He was caught by the Brazilian authorities in 2000 and held for 18 months under a Paraguayan extradition request before Brazil's supreme court freed him, saying he had been the victim of political persecution.

Ovelar, the current education minister, is the Colorado party's candidate [AFP]

On his return to Paraguay, he was again arrested and jailed, but was released in September last year with the country's supreme court declaring he had been persecuted and that he could still run for president.

Blanca Ovelar, a rural school teacher who became the current government's education minister, is aiming to become her country's first female president.

She is a protege of Duarte's, who helped her win the Colorado party's nomination last December despite criticism from some members that she lacked charisma.

At 6ft tall, Ovelar stands slightly above the other candidates and has the distinction of being a one-time basketball player.

What do the opinion polls say?

The most recent survey gives Lugo 34 per cent support from voters, followed by Oviedo with 29 per cent and Ovelar with 28 per cent.

Far behind them is a fourth candidate, Pedro Fadul, a local businessman, with only four per cent.

What can the winner expect to inherit?

Of the issues the next president will face, corruption is probably the most pressing. Duarte made little headway in stamping out the problem, which beset his administration.

Can we expect a good, clean game?

Opposition figures have voiced fears of electoral fraud, but Duarte has rejected the claims saying the opposition is playing up the allegations.

Juan Manuel Morales, the head of Paraguay's electoral commission, also dismissed the fraud claims, vowing the polls will be "absolutely transparent".

Voting will be subject to scrutiny from 70 observers from the Organisation of American States led by Ema Mejia, the former Colombian foreign minister.

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