BY KEVIN G. HALL
 Herald World Staff

 ASUNCION, Paraguay -- Felix Argaña remembers getting the news a year ago
 today that his father, Luis Maria Argaña, the vice president of Paraguay, had been
 gunned down in the streets of this capital.

 Thinking him only wounded, Argaña rushed to the hospital, where a doctor
 handed over a wedding ring and watch.

 ``We understood then that my father had died,'' Argaña said.

 One year after the first violent coup attempt in Latin America in years spawned
 worries about renewed instability across the continent, the younger Argaña is a
 favorite in the April 9 Colorado Party primary for a candidate to succeed his father.
 He's seen as the best chance for keeping the military in its barracks and its
 controversial former chief out of power.

 At 42, Felix Argaña appears to be a still-in-formation key to Paraguay's future.

 In a wide-ranging interview, the architect and Asuncion city councilman conceded
 he is a newcomer but compared his family to that of former President George
 Bush, whose son Jeb is Florida's governor and son George W. is the presumed
 Republican presidential nominee.

 The Argañas are among the few families that have long dominated Paraguay.

 ``Politics is under our skin,'' Felix Argaña said. His brother Nelson is defense
 minister and brother Jesus is a private secretary to President Luis Gonzalez
 Macchi.

 UNKNOWN SKILLS

 But little is known in this land of five million people about Felix Argaña's political
 skills, which he says he learned as his father's aide.

 ``Being so close behind his political footsteps, his political accomplishments, one
 always learns something by force,'' he said. ``At least, we have good intentions.''

 The elder Argaña's political battle with then-President Raul Cubas and Cubas'
 patron, armed forces chief Lino Cesar Oviedo, is thought to have led to his
 murder, in an attempt to catapult Oviedo to power.

 Since the fall in 1989 of Gen. Alfredo Stroessner, who had ruled since 1954, there
 have been ferocious political battles between the president and vice president,
 who are elected separately. Felix Argaña offers himself as a man who can work
 with the president.

 ``What we want is to avoid this, to calm the waters,'' he said.

 Notably, his vice presidential candidacy is backed by Gonzalez Macchi, a
 protegé of the elder Argaña. As Senate president, Gonzalez Macchi became
 president after Vice President Argaña was killed and President Cubas fled to
 Brazil. Felix Argaña said he recognizes the constitutional succession, while his
 two opponents want the courts to remove Gonzalez Macchi from office and set a
 new presidential election.

 CHANGES WANTED

 Argaña wants the vice presidency changed so that the vice president is president
 of the legislature, as in Argentina. Also, he wants all the country's elections held
 on the same day, saying the present staggered elections drain government
 resources and divert attention from economic and social issues.

 ``The economy has deteriorated; social problems have grown,'' Argaña said. ``Ask
 any Paraguayan, and they will respond the same.''

 Since last year, Paraguayans have looked at their government more critically.

 ``Citizens have changed tremendously, but the government that took over did not
 take into account what happened [last March],'' said the Rev. Francisco Oliva, an
 activist Roman Catholic priest. ``They have continued to act like those before.''

 Oliva's network of democracy advocates rallied protesters last March and is
 organizing a march Friday night to commemorate the seven students slain during
 last year's protests.

 There's also uncertainty about the role and actions of Gen. Oviedo, blamed by
 most Paraguayans for orchestrating Luis Maria Argaña's murder. Oviedo was a
 candidate for president and Cubas for vice president in 1998. When Oviedo was
 jailed for a 1996 coup plot, Cubas was elected president instead and released
 Oviedo from jail. Oviedo and the elder Argaña then resumed their struggle for
 control of the Colorado Party.

 ON THE RUN

 After last year's turmoil, Oviedo fled to Argentina, where he was arrested, then
 granted political asylum. This year, Argentina's new president, Fernando de la
 Rua, declared Oviedo unwelcome. Wanted for questioning in Paraguay, he is
 rumored to be in the lawless border area where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay
 meet. Occasionally, he calls Argentine and Brazilian newspapers, vowing to
 return home triumphantly.

 The Argaña murder case remains a public irritant. Two men accused in the
 assassination are being held in Argentina, awaiting extradition. The vice
 president's driver said this week that he saw the two men kill Argaña and one of
 his bodyguards. A third man has admitted to a role.

 The events shocked Paraguayans in part because a high-level politician had not
 been murdered since Stroessner consolidated power decades ago. The potential
 for more violence worries Felix Argaña, who received a visitor in what seemed to
 be a safe house.

 ``Sure, there is a feeling of insecurity, or fear, that persists after seeing something
 like this, an assassination in the middle of the street,'' he said.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald