This emerging leadership role reflects a population in which nearly 50% of people are under 25, but it also fills a vacuum left by major parties.
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“Many people don’t want to go to a demonstration when there’s a political presence,” said Ayala. “I think students have an opportunity here to say – this isn’t party politics, this is a national issue.”

Today’s students grew up after the end of Alfredo Stroessner’s 35-year dictatorship in 1989, but they have recent experience in battling abuses of power.

After Stroessner’s fall, so-called “garage universities” proliferated – substandard private institutions which charge hefty fees for rubber-stamp diplomas. “Every three or four blocks around town, there’s a private university,” said Patricia Batán, a UCA communications student. “Some of them are actually garages.”